Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, has come up with a load of bogus and deeply misinformed arguments to try to persuade Republicans to oppose CACR 12, the education funding constitutional amendment up for a vote in the Legislature today. There are too many to rebut here in the brief time I have this morning, and Ed Mosca has done a good job of it anyway (). But one point that needs rebuttal before the vote is her claim yesterday that CACR 12 forces New Hampshire to "redistribute wealth."

She wrote in a reply to Mosca, "The fact is that the first sentence of the proposed amendment puts in place, for the first time in New Hampshire’s history, a ‘responsibility’ for the Legislature ‘to maintain a system of public education’ and even ‘mitigate local disparities in education opportunity and fiscal capacity’.” Any fair reading of that sentence indicates that the Legislature would be required to redistribute wealth.”

What does McKinney think the state's existing education funding scheme does? It redistributes wealth, of course. Public education must, by definition, redistribute wealth. Otherwise it would be private education.

If McKinney wants to argue that we should not have a public education system, she should argue that. But she cannot argue coherently that we should have a public education system and not have some redistribution of wealth. The whole point of public education is to provide an education to those who cannot afford it so that our republic can survive. As Jefferson wrote, "whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." The American experiment in self-government requires public education, which requires some redistribution of wealth. There is no alternative to this.

There are lots of different ways a state can handle that redistribution. New Hampshire currently collects money from all communities and redistributes it back to... all communities. The Supreme Court, misinterpreting the state constitution, required the state in the Claremont rulings to give the same base amount of money to everyone, regardless of need. Under this system, lower-income towns can actually end up subsidizing higher-income towns if the less affluent ones have high property values. This was one reason the Coalition Communities were formed and Londonderry sued the state.

There is a better way. The state can deliver education aid to the communities that need it most. Yes, this "redistributes wealth," as every single public education funding method necessarily does. But it does so in the most efficient way: by targeting aid to the communities that need it most.

Republicans should consider the education funding issue as a question of efficiency. What is the more efficient way to allocate scarce state resources to achieve the necessary goal of educating all New Hampshire children? The system mandated by the Claremont rulings is grossly inefficient. Targeting aid to those who most need it is highly efficient.

Hoping that the state will stop funding public education and leave that entirely to local governments is to indulge in a fantasy. That has never happened in New Hampshire's history, and it is not about to. The people would never stand for it. Many of our Founding Fathers would have opposed it.

Jefferson wrote to his friend George Wythe in 1786, "I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

James Madison wrote in 1822, regarding a proposal for universal education in Kentucky:

"No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty & superficial view of the subject: that the people at large have no interest in the establishment of Academies, Colleges, and Universities, where a few only, and those not of the poorer classes can obtain for their sons the advantages of superior education. It is thought to be unjust that all should be taxed for the benefit of a part, and that too the part least needing it.

"If provision were not made at the same time for every part, the objection would be a natural one. But, besides the consideration when the higher Seminaries belong to a plan of general education, that it is better for the poorer classes to have the aid of the richer by a general tax on property, than that every parent should provide at his own expence for the education of his children, it is certain that every Class is interested in establishments which give to the human mind its highest improvements, and to every Country its truest and most durable celebrity."

If "redistribution of wealth" for the purpose of providing a public education to all citizens was the great hope of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, it ought to be OK with the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire.