[lsbskins1]

Brien-

We have had this go around before as well. Yes, there are limited examples of people rising from poverty to the hights of success, but that does not mean it is the norm. It is much more likely, as you go down the poverty roles, that you will find people mired in the same circumstances. But, where people are not stuck, if you scratch the surface, you will find a government grant funded education or need based assistance. Or lots of publicly funded education (K - 12, thank you very much). You advocate taking all of that away. In the very limited instances where your Horatio Alger fable is made real, it is almost always predicated on public assitance and/or public education through state funding for higher education, etc. You can not have it both ways, whatever the case. Mobility through the income levels would be a virtual impossibility without the programs you would scrap. I am only saying that the vision of a social mobility is a good vision, but a vision that is only possible if you accept the idea that a level playing field is necessary to achieve it and the only way to assure that level field is through government establishment of the level field.