how we could win [was Re: [lbo-talk] how Hillary could win]

Jordan Hayes jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com
Wed Jul 19 11:13:06 PDT 2006



>> universal free preschool,
>
> Potentially popular, if you can get someone to pay for it. Didn't
> this lose in Calif, even though it was going to be funded by lightly
> moistening the fat boys?

It's an odd case: potentially a good effort, deep backing by all the right groups, but it had some weird techno-political isse (Rob Reiner's involvement with a state comission AND this effort) and sort of dropped off the radar and then lost. Who knows why these things happen, but some analysis I've seen is that it was too much of a narrow bullet: people said "If you can raise all that money [1.7% of incomes over $400k/$800k], the schools need much more radical reform first" ...

Plus there's the perceived 'problem' of giving a handout to those who can already afford preschool. Is it really that hard to administer a needs test for things like this? "It's $8k/yr, get up to 100% off by showing your AGI from last year's 1040"

/jordan



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