Dear List Members
After reading many of your comments on my proposal for a
constitutional amendment tying government spending on prisons to
government spending on higher education, I believe that it is now
time for me to respond to some of the comments. I will attempt to
address the major comments in some sort of logical (I hope) order.
First, is this concept simply rent seeking behavior on my
part? I would argue that while it is true that the adoption of
such a proposal, however unlikely, would tend to benefit me and
others in the academic field, this does not invalidate the
proposal. I believe that if higher education were made more
available to many of the disadvantaged groups in the United States
the crime rate would in fact fall. I must admit that is only my
belief and to this date not backed up by hard evidence. I simply
believe that if more younger Americans could see opportunity they
would be much less likely to opt for the road of crime. More money
spent in the area of higher education, much of which in my opinion
should be spent on aid and tutoring, would make this goal of a
college degree or more much closer to the grasp of many.
Second, should we drop the higher education off of the
amendment? I can accept this modification to a large extent. One
must always understand the context an author, in this case me, is
writing to truly understand the reasons behind the specifics of any
proposal. In Oklahoma, where I currently teach, the vo-tech
programs are highly funded already. In fact, the new governor has
proposed a cut in higher education of 2.5% this year across the
board while exempting vo-tech and offering more money to build more
centers. All this while the current vo-tech centers are not filled
and the university system, at least in some cases, is full.
On the same issue, there was the question of attempting to
address the strange funding of education that allows the rich
communities to have more highly funded and presumable "better"
educational opportunities relative to the poorer communities. I
support literally any proposal that would eliminate this type of
situation. I literally believe that this discrepancy is one of the
biggest outrages in America today. More money may help this
situation, but I fear more money will simply mean the rich areas
get more and the poor areas get marginally more but less than their
percentage share. More importantly, the poorer areas most likely
would get less than what is really needed and the rich areas would
get more than what is really needed.
Finally, I offered the proposal as simply being better than
the garbage that is coming out of Washington these days. I really
do not know if such a policy should ever be adopted. In fact, I
believe that it was Dr. Solow from Iowa that stated he did not
believe in a constitutional amendment for such purposes.
Specifically, he stated, if I recall correctly, that these sorts of
amendments should be limited to issues of basic human rights and
freedoms. I would tend to agree with Dr. Solow but then I would
argue that we certainly do not need a balanced budget amendment!
This was sort of my point from the beginning.
I do hope that this post is not the last on this issue though.
I would like to hear what others have to say about things that we
could tie prison funding to that would have the long run effect of
lower future crime for the next generations. This question seems
to be the key to this issue, in my opinion, not the question of
where the money goes. I am simply tired of short sighted ideas of
building more prisons and that will solve the problem. It never
will! We need to refocus our thoughts on this issue. Perhaps a
national child care system is as important as increased funding for
higher education. I must admit that this program seems to lack the
advantage of paying off for years after the investment compared to
expenditures made on education. Nonetheless, I am very sincere
when I say that I wish to hear other's opinions. Feel free to mail
me directly or through the lists.
Thank you
Loren Rice
The University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
