[Vision2020] Are You Smart Enough to Be a Citizen?

[Kenneth Marcy]

On 12/7/2013 12:38 PM, Robert Dickow wrote:
>
> Well, this "take-a-test to keep one's citizenship" idea sounds like 
> Big Government, and would be expensive to enforce and administer. Why 
> not just grant citizenship only to landowners, and give them votes 
> based on acres owned?
>

So, are you ready to allow these guys to elect the stand-ins for our 
actual overseers?

http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-private-landowners-2013-10?op=1

> Sound like a plan, or what?
>

Are you ready to hire Jane Fonda as an election lobbyist to have a chat 
with her ex Ted Turner?

> Think about the exam every 10 years thing. Imagine walking up to the 
> voting booth only to discover that your citizenship had run out 3 
> minutes ago?
>

Citizenship is one thing.  Education levels are another.  Suppose the 
income tax rates are bumped up a notch or two, with a concomitant offer 
that if you pass a set of comprehensive high school subject 
examinations, your taxes will be reduced on some sliding scale -- the 
more exams passed, the more your taxes go down.

> Statistical odds would suggest that such anomalies would occur at a 
> significant rate. So much for the thought experiment.
>

I expect that the rate of homework completion and educational 
accomplishment would increase noticeably after attaching a reduced tax 
bill to an increased educational accomplishment level.


Ken
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