April 10, 2018
Once again Robert Samuelson takes a big swing and misses in his Washington Post column today. He argues that schools in states like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma are underfunded and unable to pay their teachers a decent wage because of the cost for caring for the elderly.
This is wrong for two obvious reasons. First, these are all low-tax states. They could try something like raising taxes on higher income households. This is one way to get money.
The other problem is that a main reason why it costs so much to care for our elderly is that we pay our doctors and drug companies twice as much for their services and products as people in other wealthy countries. If we paid the same prices for our health care as people in Canada or Germany, it would free up more than $1 trillion annually for schools and other worthwhile items.
But The Washington Post doesn’t like to call attention to the incomes of the affluent, they would rather beat up on senior citizens.
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