Yes, everyone is sick to death of election-related blogs, news, and ads. So instead, enjoy this interview between my pal John Cook at TechFlash and Nick Hanauer, Seattle rich dude and venture capitalist in favor of Initiative 1098, as an interesting discussion about why the wealthy are wise to pay their fair share in taxes.
My favorite part of the interview is Hanauer arguing in favor of more support for public schools, in which he attacks his wealthy peers who argue that schools are wasting our tax dollars. He says:
“Every rich person in Seattle sends their kids to (private) schools that cost about $20,000 per child. They have absolutely, completely made up their minds that $20,000 is about the amount you should spend to give your child a world-class education. If you are thinking about creating increasing returns and you are determined to do it, asserting that the $9,800 we are currently spending (per child in public education) is ludicrous. It is wasteful? What do you want to cut it to? You can win if you invest. If $20,000 is the right number for my kids, why shouldn’t we spend $25,000 on the poor kids? I mean if you really care, you really want to create increasing returns you are going to err on the other side.”
The interview is funny, includes a little foul language, and still tackles heady topics including the myth of a libertarian utopia and economics and chaos theory. Happy reading. And don’t forget to vote.
School bus photo used under the Creative Commons license from Flickr user freedryk.
