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Page 107
problem arises, of course, under the income tax, and to a very much greater extent. This and other administrative problems of conducting the scheme on a federal level, while doubtless troublesome in detail, do not seem serious. The serious problem is the political one already mentioned: how to prevent the scheme from becoming a political football and in the process being converted from a self-financing project to a means of subsidizing vocational education.
But if the danger is real, so is the opportunity. Existing imperfections in the capital market tend to restrict the more expensive vocational and professional training to individuals whose parents or benefactors can finance the training required. They make such individuals a "non-competing" group sheltered from competition by the unavailability of the necessary capital to many able individuals. The result is to perpetuate inequalities in wealth and status. The development of arrangements such as those outlined above would make capital more widely available and would thereby do much to make equality of opportunity a reality, to diminish inequalities of income and wealth, and to promote the full use of our human resources. And it would do so not by impeding competition, destroying incentive, and dealing with symptoms, as would result from the outright redistribution of income, but by strengthening competition, making incentives effective, and eliminating the causes of inequality.

 
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