PolicyGuy

Tuesday, November 25, 2003


A Meaningless Comparison
Massachusetts now spends more money on prisons than on higher education. Perhaps the Bay State relies too much on prisons. Perhaps it doesn't. But if the state has any responsibility to the public, it's public safety. The case for taxpayer funding for higher education, by contrast, is much weaker. Much of the benefit (in terms of higher salaries) of higher education goes to the people who receive the education. But the public at large benefits if a violent criminal is locked up.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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