Quote Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue View Post
Actually FL, in all seriousness I have to agree with you about our education system being a failure.
Ever since Reagan dismantled higher education and the conservatives strangled the budget for every other level of education, our children just don't/can't compete with the rest of the world anymore.
Our children are the future of this country and our longterm economic health, global competiveness, and prosperity depend on their education.
Blaming a lack of spending is the defacto liberal mantra.

The inconvenient fact to that argument is that spending per student in the US has more than doubled over the last 15 years while student performance has remained below that of countries that spend less than the US per student.

Quote Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue View Post
I've been thinking that I should reconsider my previous opinions about the voucher system for education.
Maybe it would be a better system if parents were given a voucher to allow them to choose any school to send their children for education instead of the current system we have for government run education based on geographic locations.
Of course, all the extemely flawed and biased voucher systems currently proposed would have to be scrapped and revised so that they weren't so blatantly subsidising the children of the wealthy and gave equal opportunity to children of all races and economic classes.
It's promising to hear that you are coming around on vouchers. Some Democrats have done so recently as well. However, opposition from the teachers union remains strong and continues to obstruct positive change.

Not sure what you're talking about in regard to "biased voucher systems." Every voucher system I've seen gives students of any race or economic class the exact same value of voucher and choice in its use. Did you hear that they were flawed from John Edwards?

Quote Originally Posted by gerbick View Post
You've shifted from the US not being low/last in healthcare simply because of what the Republicans didn't do in the last 8-12 years to defending how infant mortality isn't a indicator of how good/bad healthcare is in the US because of one report you've found that's a reworked OECD look at facts.

It's a slight repositioning; however the problem still exists that I think you're not willing to admit one thing: the US healthcare system, past and present is extremely flawed and is not up to par for a country of our wealth. No need to drag politics into that statement.

It stands by itself since it's true.
I've just rolled with the statistics and arguments that others have put forth. I agree that our system is broken. Just that the quality of the healthcare isn't the broken part. It's the cost that is out of whack. And that is a result of government involvement piled on year after year by both parties. What Obama wants to do would simply be a record-breaking-sized dump on top of a long history of smaller ones.