No.

Those of us who have do owe some of our having to those at the bottom who are spinning their wheels to make the economy move. The stockholders in, say, WalMart or McDonald's are nowhere without the workers in the stores. McDonald's does a pretty good job of providing decent working conditions and a benefits package, though it's still hard to support a family on a full-time job there. I remember finding information about the health care provisions for employees of WalMart in Georgia: the state-funded health program. The stockholders didn't have to pay for heath insurance for their employees in Georgia because they pushed the costs off on the taxpayers, while the stockholders got the profits from the company. That's venal too.

There's plenty of greed to go around. We are not therefore absolved of responsibility for each other. Sometimes the big brush of government is the only way to initiate help across a wide ranging group of problems. People who live in less attractive or less generous areas should not have to languish in hopeless hand-to-mouth existence, picking either a job or safe child care, either rent or food, either work or education, either preventive care or the emergency room. Thinking about it as an investment in a working, less violent, less criminal society, it's in all of our best interests to provide basic common opportunities for all our citizens. Hope powerfully supports ambition and industry. Despair destroys them both.

Besides that more practical aspect, we have a principle to uphold: equal opportunity. An example: The free public education you speak of doesn't provide that by a long shot. Quality varies not only a little here and there, but enormously, based on income of school districts and the environments surrounding and inside the schools. Teachers with excellent credentials, unless they have an inspired, almost religious mission to teach, will seek jobs where they can expect success and personal safety. I hope it doesn't shock anyone that teaching professionals are so much like everyone else. Unless considerable incentives are offered to get excellent teachers into substandard schools, and to support those teachers with the materials, community social work, and personal security they require, our educational structure will continue to offer the least to those with the most need, and the cycle will continue.

You want to set up a securely and voluntarily funded national program or network of programs to correct this? My hat's off to you. If you suggest that we (who can afford it, as our children are not immediately affected by these problems) wait for a philanthropist to appear from the private sector while children suffer neglect, then shame on you. I pay my taxes to support infrastructure. I believe that the promise of equal opportunity is part of our intellectual and social infrastructure, and I'm willing to pay for that. You can earmark all your taxes for roads, bridges, and military adventures in Iraq, and I will earmark mine for education and health care.