The key word being public, and especially for them, federally controlled to a point through Washington via the Department of Education (which is only around operationally since May 1980).
The US, since 1980, has plummetted in many metrics educationally, and is in danger of falling out of the top 40 or 50 nations in several key areas. I will not attempt in this post to tackle the myriad number of underlying issues causing this, but the Paul supporter will counter the 'pro-public line' with the above correlation, and then point to much much higher scores and performance of both home-schooled and privately-schooled students vis-a-vis their public brethren. Again, some this is correct, some of it not measured in causationally significant ways, and some is not true, but you will end up deep in the weeds, and get nowhere.
The bottom line, they simply do NOT equate the removal of a government provided service with that service disappearing or going down in quality. They believe quite the opposite will occur, and will point especially to education and healthcare as prime examples.
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Here is a better way to counter Ron Paul than what is currently being done by BOTH Dems and Repubs:
Here is something that they (RP supporters) actually won't have a pat answer for (and this goes right to a huge discrepancy in the 'anti-war' stance that Ron Paul is so famous for. These following cuts have NO immediate or even mid-term private market response, (which would take at least one or two full generations simply to reach a cultural foundational well large to begin to draw upon), and would result immediately in civil ultra-violence, and the deaths of millions from starvation, malnourishment, etc.
Look at his proposed budget cuts ($1 trillion in first year):
http://c3244172.r72.cf0.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/RestoreAmericaPlan.pdf
Paul's bigest issue is being anti-war, anti-empire (an admirable thing). BUT, he only proposes to cut 15% from the baseline Department of Defense budget.
At the same time look at his huge cuts in programmes that are some of the few last lines between the US and an utter collapse and violent civil unrest on a grand scale. (go to the bottom of page 6 on the link above).
Medicaid 47% cut
SCHIP (Low Income Children Health Insurance) 47% cut
Food Stamps (almost 50 million US citizens) 60% cut
WIC 36% cut
Just these 4 programme cuts would be disastrous and amount to the deaths of millions of US citizens in the near and midterm future. Perhaps the goals of paring down government is admirable in certain areas, but you cannot turn around the Titanic in a swimming pool. This is what the immediate imposition of right-wing libertarian scrapping of government in the blink of an eye would be. It would take an entire generation or much longer of reform to change the entire infrastructure and mindset of the US. It will never happen under the current system, and Paul's proposals are borderline insane in their rush to kill off aid whilst not having anything to replace it.
The true shame is that an anti-war, anti-empire agenda is being solely trumpeted (and will be somewhat discredited due to Paul's inherent flaws) on a large national stage by only one candidate for Republican POTUS, and not the huge majority of Democrats.
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