Education, Like Healthcare Is Not An Entitlement

In a Rutland Herald article titled "A Socialist Plot" syndicated economist and columnist for The New York Times Paul Krugman said,

"The truth is that there's no difference in principle between saying every American child is entitled to an education and saying every American child is entitled to adequate health care."

Perhaps there isn't a difference?  However, declaring the likeness of education and health care does little to address the real question of where these supposed entitlements originate from. Certainly not in the US Constitution which is silent on both issues.  The claim that education is an entitlement is simply not supported by the facts (although the Vt Supreme Court seems to think otherwise). To argue that health care is an entitlement simply because states choose to provide education is non sequitur.

So why is Krugman so quick to claim education as an entitlement and declare health care should be as well? Could it be because his true motive is to "narrow the income gap between rich and poor"? Because, this is exactly what he said in an interview in the September issue of GQ (not online).

Krugman needs to understand that just because someone has more doesn't mean that someone else has significantly less. Economist Tyler Cowen wrote a concise rebuttal to this type of argument in the January 25 New York Times:

"...the broader philosophical question is why we should worry about inequality - of any kind - much at all. Life is not a race against fellow human beings, and we should discourage people from treating it as such. So why should economists promote this same zero-sum worldview?"

Comments

[N. P. West]

Conservatives and libertarians use the phrase "socialized health care" to describe government-run health care. Would not the phrase "socialized education" also work for government-run education?

[Greg Decker]

Yes, it would be fair to call government run education "socialized". However, calling education socialized does not in anyway change the legal fact that most states are not under an affirmative constitutional requirement to provide the service. As such Krugman's argument is weak because it amounts to saying we should be required to provide health care because we choose to provide education.

Perhaps there are good reasons for choosing to provide both "socialized" services but arguing we're required to do so is intellectually dishonest.