'Opening' schools could work wonders

Last week's column, on a bill that would tax people in Utah more for each child they add to the public school system, generated some interesting reader response. Some of you agree with the proposal, citing concerns generally about overpopulation and dwindling resources. Others said you don't mind paying for schools even though you don't have any children in them.

One reader put it this way: The government doesn't know how to grow "weeds," let alone children. "I have no children but don't mind paying taxes for social systems regardless of who benefits."

Another reader said she wouldn't mind a head tax for education, so long as people who home-school or send kids to private schools don't have to pay. After all, they aren't burdening anyone. Instead, "They already take a double hit by paying taxes for other people's kids and shouldering the cost of educating their own."

But the most interesting response concerned how to completely rethink Utah's system of taxes, which, after all, was the major thrust of the column. This came from a reader who referred me to an article in Imprimis, the monthly journal of Hillsdale College in Michigan. The article was an adaptation of a speech given by Maurice P. McTigue, who spent years as both an elected and appointed government official in New Zealand and who was intimately involved in that country's efforts to completely redefine its tax structure. My quotes from that article are reprinted with permission.

In 1984, New Zealand's leaders decided it was time begin asking different questions and to look for different answers. Instead of just spending whatever it got, government was made to explain what the people were getting. Three main questions confronted each government agency: "What are you doing? What should you be doing? Who should be paying — the taxpayer, the user, the consumer or the industry?"

The answers sparked a revolution.

Eventually, the Department of Transportation went from 5,600 employees to 53, the Forest Service went from 17,000 to 17, and the Ministry of Works went from 28,000 to 1. The folks who lost their jobs ended up with higher-paying ones in the private sector. Simply put, the need for their services didn't go away. Only government's direct involvement did.