Funding
Categorical Grant: a grant given by the federal government issued to states for the reason of spending it for very narrow purposes.
Excise Tax: a tax that is put on manufactured goods. The profits that come from the tax are used for specific purposes.
How Would Funding Work?
In July of 2021, total liquor sales amounted to approximately 6 billion dollars (FRED).
From a 1% excise tax on this, we would get at least 600 million dollars available for funding. These 600 million dollars would be the source of our proposed categorical grant. We suggest that the Federal government set aside approximately 400,000,000 dollars for sex education and approximately 200,000,000 dollars for infrastructure spending. To reiterate, the purpose of this infrastructure spending is to incentivize states who are uninterested.
When it comes time to distribute the taxed money, we suggest that the public school student population within each state determine the amount of funding that the state receives. Essentially, states that have a larger public school student population get more money. The same will be true for infrastructure spending: the larger the population in a state, the more money that state receives.
We recognize that there are 6 states with pre-existing comprehensive sex education and LGBTQ+ education. These states would still receive categorical grants if they specifically adopt New Jersey's curriculum and continue to teach comprehensive education.