Talk:Essay: Conservapedia Questions for the 2008 Presidential Candidates

Tax Credits for Homeschoolers

What is your position on tax credits to help pay for homeschooling? Most homeschoolers I know do NOT want tax credits. With money comes government oversight, which is the last thing we need. In particular, getting the federal government involved in defining homeschooling would be problematic (due to differing state laws, some of which do not include a formal "homeschooling" option) and would not, IMHO, end well for homeschoolers. I suggest we do NOT ask this question. --Hsmom 22:47, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

I'm fine with pulling that one but would like at least one other homeschooling proponent to weigh in. --DinsdaleP 22:58, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Fair enough. To expand a bit - in some states, there is no such thing, legally, as a homeschooler. They are all enrolled in very tiny (one family) private schools, or they are all enrolled in multi-family "umbrella" schools (that they don't actually attend), etc.. In other states, homeschoolers don't have to even notify the government that they exist. So you can see that there becomes a problem if you have to create a Federal program that allows certain people to take tax credits for homeschooling - you will have to define homeschooling. To add to the complexity, there are now publicly-funded cyber-charter schools in some states, (essentially correspondence schools, often run by a private company, with the student's tuition paid by state and local government, often to the tune of $8,000ish a year). Throw in students who are on publicly-funded homebound instruction (due to illness, expulsion, pregnancy, etc.) These latter two options are sometimes called "homeschooling" - the student is after all learning at home, though their schooling is already taxpayer-funded. Add in concerns that federal money can't be used for religious instruction, that some homeschoolers teach things that the government doesn't approve of (similar to Bob Jones University's supreme court case), and so on, and you've got one big mess. I'd love the money, of course, but it's not worth the strings. What I REALLY want is social security credits for the time I've spent out of the work force raising my kids. It's honorable work that contributes to society, and the government should recognize it as such. --Hsmom 23:16, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Comment from Philip J. Rayment

I was asked by the author to comment on this, so here are my comments!

On the whole it looks very good. I'm sure that there could be some fine-tuning in the approach, although I don't have anything specific in mind, and given the timescale it may not be practicable to spend much time on that.

It says that questions should not be removed unless inappropriate. I'm guessing that they can also be removed after discussion on the talk page, but if so this should be clarified. I also wonder about the number of questions. How many is it appropriate to expect the candidates to answer (given everyone else who will be asking also)? Not that I think there is necessarily too many now, but once it is thrown open to others to add their own, there is a possibility of the number increasing dramatically. Which gets back to the need to be able to remove questions that, for example, others consider too trivial.

I don't like to exclude personal questions if they relate to the candidate's integrity and values (for example, if he lies to his wife, how do we trust him to be truthful to the country?), but unless the questions are ones that are applicable for both candidates, then I guess it's fair enough to exclude them from this project.

Not having a huge amount of interest in the American election, I'm not going to comment on many of the questions themselves (and I guess I wasn't being asked that anyway), but I'll comment on a couple.

• The one about school prayer perhaps doesn't make clear, if indeed this is what is intended, that it is asking what the candidate thinks should be the case if there were no constitutional/court-decision hindrances. Otherwise they might fob the question off by saying that it's not allowed, and not actually answer the question.
• The one about the legality of selling tobacco seems to assume that it's a black-and-white question: either it's allowed or it's not. Perhaps the question would be better framed along the lines of what they are going to do about reducing tobacco use. No government is going to ban tobacco overnight; there would be too much of a backlash and the next administration would reinstate it. Instead, the better approach is to minimise its use, and only after it has largely fallen out of fashion would a government then get away with banning it. (This is my opinion, anyway.)

Philip J. Rayment 22:51, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for the feedback, Philip. In response to your points:

• I agree that questions can be removed, but I wanted to stress that they need to be discussed first to avoid edit wars on the main page itself.
• Personal questions that are generic enough to apply to all candidates would be fine. I'm trying to avoid the specific ones like "Senator X, how do you defend accusations that you whatever. I'm going for the Saddleback Church approach where the audience got to see both sides respond to the same questions.
• I'd say that the overall number of questions can and should be trimmed if they get too long - otherwise we couldn't expect a response in a couple of weeks. For now I'd let the lists grow as long as possible, and deal with trimming as 9/30 approaches.
• Whether currently allowed or not, I thought the school prayer question would help give an insight into the candidates' own values, and the mindset they'd want to see in their court appointments.
• Good point on tobacco - I'll rework that one, and feel free to edit any of the entries for clarity or readability.

Thanks again for your insights. --DinsdaleP 23:12, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Minor point

"Do you plan to change current U.S. policy on imported prescription drugs. Does the source (Canada vs. China, for example) make a difference? "

The drugs currently being bought from Canada are reimported in most cases - made in USA, sold far cheaper in Canada than in the US, so people go there to get them. As opposed to "foreign made" drugs implied by "imported" and the mention of China. Behind this issue is the law that prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices with manufacturers. it might be better to go broader and ask them what, if anything, they would do to improve Medicare Part D. Human 17:44, 17 September 2008 (EDT)