CATO Institute is Full-of-It!

[stepnw1f]

Just heard a representative from the CATO Institute talking to Thom Hartmann on Radiopower.org about public education.

It is their own ideology of cutting funding for social programs, especially Public Education that has caused a decrease in every student's public education. Yet they blame this decrease in educational standards on the very system they have deliberately been strangling for the last 30 years! Not only are they dishonest, but they are criminal. In my opinion, they should be held accountable for deliberately trying to destroy social programs.

The CATO Institute is nothing but a Shilling Outfit for the super-rich and corporations.



:rant:

[YOY]

1. You didn't know that before?

Buncha RW shills with the most obtuse of economic realities in mind.

[stepnw1f]

6. I've Known about Them for a few Years

just venting and trying to start a discussion about them.

[unpossibles]

2. for the most part I agree

I don't know much about them, other than a local freeper who uses them as a source - he is usually incredibly misinformed, but I assumed it was him, not his source. I should look them up.

Generally speaking, I think most of these RW "think tanks" (and some of the ones who claim to be non-partisan) are nothing but places to learn how to better to control people and screw them over.

[Warpy]

3. "Angela's Ashes"

Read that book to discover what having churches do all the social services turns into. It's the maximum in degradation with the minimum of actual help.

[acmejack]

4. Founded in 1977 by David H. Koch,

What more do I need to say?

snip>
The Cato Institute has been a long-time advocate of Social Security privatization. A chief early architect of Cato's thinking on private accounts was Peter J. Ferrara. The Washington Post's Thomas Edsall wrote in February 2005: "The emergence of the center-right phalanx backing the Social Security proposal is a major victory for the Cato Institute, a prominent libertarian group. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Cato was almost alone in its willingness to challenge the legitimacy of the existing Social Security system, a politically sacrosanct retirement program. Recognizing the wariness of other conservatives to tackle Social Security, Cato in 1983 published an article calling for privatization of the system. The article argued that companies that stand to profit from privatization -- 'the banks, insurance companies and other institutions that will gain' -- had to be brought into alliance. Second, the article called for initiation of 'guerrilla warfare against both the current Social Security system and the coalition that supports it.'"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute

[eallen]

5. It is the religious right, not business, that battles public education.

Corporations typically see the value in a good public education system. When Toyota chose Canada over Alabama as the site for a new plant a couple of years back, the difference in public education standards was one of the reasons it explicitly called out. That's not an exception. If you research the issue, you will find that is one of the things that companies standardly examine when they are choosing a new site. It makes a difference to them in the kind of workers they can hire, and the amount of training those workers require. If you put it to a vote of corporate CEOs, I suspect you would find increased budgets for public schools.

In contrast, the religious right detests public schools because they won't indoctrinate students in their chosen religious beliefs. This is a problem for two reasons. (a) Even though the public schools also don't oppose religion, the very lack of indoctrination opens students minds to possibilities outside their parents' world view. (b) Achieving the level of indoctrination that the parents desire now requires that they either individually fund private schools, or that they go to the considerable effort of home schooling. The religious right correctly views public schools as a practical impediment to religious indoctrination, and so there goal is to get the government to fund the latter through voucher programs for religious schools.

[Selatius]

7. The Cato Institute is a Neo-Liberal outfit

On the spectrum of neo-Liberal policies and collectivist policies, I lie closer to collectivism than I do with neo-liberalism, so I know where Cato's bread is buttered, and it isn't buttered by my side.

[TomClash]

8. Graduates of Public Education

brought you the following technological innovations: radio, TV, integrated circuits, cell phones, internet, human transplants. And that's just a start.

Private school education brought you - George W. Bush.

Your end of the lesson, Cato.