The debate over means-testing Medicare or Social Security benefits, so that higher-income or higher-asset people would get less, has been the subject of a series of posts here (see for example, here, here, here, and here). Now a Bloomberg News headline takes the means-testing argument to an entirely new level: "Taxpayers Billed for Millionaires' Kids at Charter School."
It's a public charter school, so one wonders what exactly Bloomberg News would propose as an alternative policy to prevent the situation it finds so headline worthy. Should the children of millionaires be barred at the doors from public schools that are open to other children? Or should they be forced to pay tuition to attend schools that other children attend tuition-free? Has it not occurred to the Bloomberg editors that the "taxpayers" and the "millionaires" are not two mutually exclusive groups and that millionaires actually turn out to pay a lot of taxes, too? What's next — headlines about how taxpayers pay for roads on which millionaires are also allowed to drive? For playgrounds on which children of millionaires are allowed to run around?
The commenters on the Bloomberg article seem smarter than the headline writer, or than the editor who approved the premise for the story. For example: "to Bloomberg news -- what is the point of this article? That the kids who happen to be born to rich parents are not entitled to public education, much less to a charter school public education?" And, "What a non-issue. I can assure you that the amount of taxes the typical wealthy person pays in California more then offsets any benefit they are getting. It's amazing the greed in this country on all sides."