Vouchers: I was wrong
For over a decade I have supporter a voucher system as a way of reforming education, health and other government programs. Vouchers provided a way to increase the role of market discipline while maintaining a level of government subsidy, and are supported by many moderate libertarians as appropriate policy and by many libertarians as a step in the right direction.
The basic idea is to give each person an allowance that must be spent on a certain type of behaviour. For example, give each parent $10,000 that they must spend on any school for their child. Since the subsidy is now going to the consumer and not the producer (ie not the school) there is no need for government control or ownerhip of the school and we can have proper competition between schools, which should drive up the total quality and choice in education.
I still believe this is good reform… but I now think I was wrong about one element.
