“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be” -Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson believed public education to be essential to democracy. So what does it mean for a nation to continually cut education for the poor before it will consider increasing taxes on the rich? It seems to me that eventually, these policies will mean a cheap workforce of uneducated laborers. It could also mean an easily propagandized nation of voters, or perhaps a majority of laborers ineligible to vote for lack of proper identification. One can picture masses of people living out their lives as worker drones. They will be born renters and laborers for those born into the ownership class and live invisibly behind the walls of gated communities. Whatever happens, we will call ourselves a democracy, but the battle over public education will determine whether that word will have any meaning for someone born poor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/education-funding-drops-i_n_1855826.html
Cutting education for the masses will do all of the above-listed evils. It’s what the 1% want and are consciously planning for: a nation full of poor, uneducated, overworked, tired, dependent, obedient slaves. The movie The Matrix is not farfetched, it is prescient. Either we will all stand up and demand public education and a safety net and proper distribution of wealth, or we will all end up in the Matrix.