If you were president of the USA....

What ideas can you come up with to make the country safer....and what ideas can you come up with to make the schools safer?

This is not a post to bash and argue about Trump, Obama, or any other president. Such posts will be deleted.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

Northwest · M

What LvChris, said, but to paraphrase:

1. Divert 1% of the nearly $800B military budget to a special K-12 fund. That would be about $8B.

2. Use this fund for a 1-1 fund matching, for local schools, on the condition that funds matched do not come from the already approved local schools budgets, slotted for "education" only purposes.

3. The 2018 department of Education allocated $59 billion in discretionary funding, a $9 billion or 13 percent decrease below the 2017 annualized CR level. Restore those funds, and allocate them to a special College security fund.

4. Colleges can get a 1-1 match from the federal College security fund. Public colleges automatically qualify, private colleges can get matching funds, using a formula based on how much public funding their receive, on a per capita basis, relative to public colleges in the same area.

This should take care of the security issue.

This, of course, does not address the issue of more money to increase "actual" education. Perhaps another 1% of the military budget should be re-allocated? Do we need more nukes?

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

Can you believe lvchris blocked me awhile ago? He should reconsider that. It was over him trying to bully me into agreeing with some minor premise or another. I don’t mind and in fact enjoy discoursing wth reasonable and willing to listen but not agree individuals who frequently look at things differently than I do. Somehow I think around 5% of the new military budget could be used elsewhere without any negative military consequences. High school and post high school education is one place some could be well spent. Not necessarily all for college. Plenty of people make great living in trade and often become well off successful entrepreneurs. The proposed increase in infrastructure spending will not even keep the infrastructure functioning as it is now much less improve it. @Northwest

Northwest · M

@jackjjackson I agree on trade schools, and in my mind, I include it in College (as in post secondary).

One of our issues today, is that there are too many English, art appreciation, and communications majors, who end up serving coffee for a living, while attempting to pay off $75K in college loans.

They're better off at trade schools, and universities should limit the number of spots for liberal arts, the same way they limit the number of spots for STEM.

That's, however, another discussion.

The infrastructure proposal, is smoke and mirrors. Trump thinks it's a real estate deal, done through a dozen middlemen. It's not.

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

Isn’t it impossible in tosay’s Regulatory world to have “shovel ready” projects?@Northwest when they decided to build the Golden Gate Bridge for example it virtually started the next day.

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

It’s a crime what liberal arts colleges and universities charge and get paid for Edith government backed loans for those worthless degrees. @Northwest

CopperCicada · M

@jackjjackson Well. It used to be the one studied the liberal arts to become educated and well rounded. To be able to understand history, economics, philosophy, religion. It used to be that our leaders and innovators were all educated like that.

Now even large state universities with graduate programs treat education as a vocational school. It's not uncommon to find college graduates who have absolutely no exposure to basics of Western intellectual history. Similarly it's possible to find liberal arts types who have avoided anything scientific and quantitative their whole lives.

I agree with you. It's a tragedy for kids to hold $100K of debt from studying anthropology. Legit comment. It's also a tragedy for kids to study business or engineering and to have no clue about the roots of Western civilization.

Northwest · M

@jackjjackson It took about 14 years, from concept to first shovel, for the Golden Gate Bridge.

You may be thinking about other depression era public works projects. COIT tower would be an example.

I'm all for Public Works projects. The irony is that they were rejected on partisan basis during the Obama administration. The reason why I say the Trump proposal is smoke and mirrors, is that it's not really about "public works", because the government would only be providing a small fraction of the funds.

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

True. It seems like a good thing to know at least a little about an array of subjects. Not necessarily enough to be on Jeopardy lol. @CopperCicada