Even Young People Can Grasp The Issues 

And Decide What Is Fair And What Is Tyranny

By David Montes, Las Cruces, NM

I have my ups and I have my downs as a substitute teacher. The 'downs' consist of confronting the apathy and the low achievement of many - too many students and even many teachers and schools. But the 'ups' are sometimes enough to make me forget about the 'downs' and to help me stay focused on the good that we can achieve.

Last Friday was an up day. I was substituting in a 10th grade classroom in which the students were studying nationalism. The assignment was for the students to imagine they were establishing their own country. They had to come up with a motto and a national emblem. They also had to answer some pretty interesting questions that involved the running of a government.

The first question asked if their country would use warfare as means to gain more territory. Some said they would. I asked them how they would pay for it. "Taxes," was the most common response. "Would everyone pay taxes," I inquired? "And would all taxpayers pay the same rate?" 

What was most insightful to me was that almost all the students said everyone should have to pay taxes. And a large percentage of them said that everyone should pay the same rate of taxes. I explained that this is called a flat tax. I asked them what rate the tax would be. Most of them were around 25-50 percent.

Of course there were also many students who said that the rich should pay more. I explained that this was
called a progressive income tax. I asked them why they chose this system and most said that the rich could afford it.

I gave them this scenario: your company makes 100 thousand dollars a year; Their eyes lit up because they knew that was pretty good money. But I informed them that it also costs 90 thousand a year to run the business. They frowned. How much net profit is that? "Ten thousand," they said. Then I let them know that the hundred grand was before taxes. I asked them how much a 25 percent tax
 would be for that salary. "Twenty-five thousand," they said.

Then I said, "Okay. If you subtract $25,000 from $100,000 and then subtract $90,000 in costs how much money would you have made?" After some arithmetic and more finger counting, their facial expressions turned ugly. "That's right," I told them, "You just lost fifteen thousand dollars."

They were shocked and understandably angry.

I didn't give them my opinion. I just had them do the math. "So what's going to happen if the companies owned by rich people keep losing money and they go out of business? What will happen to the poor people who work for them?" They had to admit that according to this scenario, the poor people will lose
their jobs.

Then I prodded even further and asked how they could pay for all their military adventures if there were no more businesses to tax? Some students took out their erasers and changed their answer. I reminded them that there was no right answer for this assignment and that point of the exercise was to use their wits and to support their answers with substance.

One group of students said they would pay for their wars by selling drugs. I pointed out to them that the government would have to legalize drugs before they could sell them. They said fine. I told them, "But if you legalize drugs, you'll make drugs less valuable and then you won't be able to make as much money selling them." They demurred.

Some kids said they would print more money. So we talked about inflation. Some kids said the government could sell food. But I told them that the government would have to own all the food. They told me that they would just take some from the farmers. "But isn't that just another tax?" They agreed.

And so it was with all their policies: Health care, education, defense. "How would you handle those who opposed the government?" They would censor the press. "But wouldn't that go against your desire for free speech?"  I grilled them on every issue pointing out the dilemmas and the catch-22s.

"But Mister!" one girl snapped, "I'm just a sophomore. I can't run a country!" I told her neither could anyone in Washington.

We talked about consumption taxes and the price of gold and the fact that America didn't always have an income tax. One kid told me that his country would only tax four percent. So we talked about the Laffer curve and revenue neutrality. We talked about treaties and trade and alliances.



The reason I counted this day as an 'up' day is because it proved to me that kids can still think. They are smart and they are honest. They understand simple concepts like 'everyone should pay their share' or 'nothing's for free.' They understand these simple concepts because these concepts are true.

Unfortunately, when kids start to grow up, they start to believe in dis-proven and foolish ideas. They suddenly believe that some people should have to pay more than their fair share and that so many things in life (health care, military, education...) are indeed "free."

I think the lesson they taught me is that most Americans of any age are blessed with common sense. I learned that you don't have to be sophisticated or use fancy language or have a post-graduate degree from Yale to communicate with people. Keep it simple. Ask questions. Let people think for themselves and they might just surprise you by saying something intelligent.