Before the bureaucrats and the federal government entered the
picture, New York City offered good public schools and what
essentially amounted to free health care. Many employers did not
offer health insurance and doctors weren't that rich, but if you
were poor and sick, medical assistance was available. Oh - and
Johnny could read.
When I was 7, I was operated on at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital
in Spanish Harlem for a burst appendix. A year later, I had a
tonsillectomy at the same hospital and my family was never
charged for these procedures because we were considered indigent.
We were not on welfare or home relief, but hospitals then had
programs, subsidized by private donations, to provide care for
those unable to pay. The city had numerous health stations where
residents received all the required vaccinations and preventive
health care.
We even had our teeth looked after. Every Wednesday, a school bus
would transport students from my parochial school on East 111th
Street to the Guggenheim Dental Clinic on 72nd Street for
checkups and simple fillings. True, novocaine was not an option,
but compare this basic service to that available in Britain and
one can appreciate how the stereotype of poor British teeth
began.
I always remember Sister Anna Mercedes warning us at Cathedral
High School for Girls that the national health care then being
proposed in Congress would be a disaster. It amounts to
socialism, which is a system that just does not work in a free
society, she said, and the years have proved her prescient.
Before government programs like Medicare and Medicaid offered
blanket coverage to those in certain income brackets, doctor
office visits were as low as $10. Afterwards, Sutton Place and
Park Avenue physicians started accepting indigent patients with
this coverage and - Voila! - taxes went up and up. I can remember
when there was no such thing as a New York City personal income
tax. New Yorkers are the most taxed in the nation and if you
don't believe that check what's on your phone bill, cable bill,
utility bill, and notice all the sneaky supplementals; franchise
fees, and special charges.
Whenever I hear a politician campaign against tax breaks for the
rich, I wish someone would stand up and shout - "What's
wrong with that? When you tax the rich, they stop investing and
spending, and take their money elsewhere. Give them tax relief
and - Voila again! - jobs!"
One of the reasons I voted for Michael Bloomberg in 2001 was
because I was under the impression that, as a successful
businessman, he understood this simple formula and was not a
tax-and-spend bureaucrat. Wrong! My property taxes immediately
went up 18% and, even though the city now has a surplus, I'll bet
that tax hike is permanent.
But the most ridiculous proposal this administration has ever
made is paying the poor to do what's right. Mr. Bloomberg's
Department of Education plans to pay poor kids to get higher
grades: If they take tests and they pass, the city will pay them.
The plan gets even worse by offering to pay their parents for
getting their children library cards and to meet with the
children's teachers. It will even pay them if their children have
good attendance records.
What an insult this is to the poor - only those totally removed
from their acquaintance would even suggest such a slap in the
face.
The much-esteemed Diane Ravitch is a historian of education at
New York University, a senior fellow at the Brookings and Hoover
Institutes, and a regular blogger at the Huffington Post. I
couldn't agree more with a recent post in which she writes,
"This plan is insulting to poor kids and poor families. It
assumes that they won't do the right thing for themselves unless
the government pays them to do it. It demeans the poor parents
who do meet their children's teachers; who do have library cards;
who do care desperately about their children's schooling.
"This plan, moreover, is unethical and immoral," she
continues. "It makes the basest possible assumptions about
human behavior and acts on the Behaviorist view that people are
motivated only by hard cash . . . The plan destroys any hope of
teaching the value of intrinsic motivation, or the rewards of
deferred gratification, or the importance of self-discipline for
a distant but valued goal."
I would like to suggest that the mayor and Chancellor Klein visit
an inner city parochial school and watch the students fall in
love with the learning process. A good teacher is supposed to be
the matchmaker of that lifelong love affair - not a pimp.