Of course, maybe the economy as a whole does better if workers can easily retrain, which would be a net gain for the tax base, so it's not really as clear as that. Explicit tax costs aren't the same as actual costs. ;)

For instance, if a worker loses their job and wants to retrain, one policy (that of the united states) forces them at the worst possible time to take on additional debt, and one (that of austria) socializes the cost so they can more easily find work in the future. I'm not an economist, so I don't know the actual effects, but I wouldn't be surprised if the austrian approach would help US rural manufacturing communities a lot to our collective benefit.

Again, I made no qualitative statement about whether the system is good or bad. I merely pointed out that there are costs.

You are arguing that the costs are worth it. Great. I don't want to have that conversation online again. You have acknowledged that there are costs. We are in agreement.

I understand, but I don't think anyone would deny that, there are costs everywhere. The more useful discussion is to understand the balance of costs and benefits, but I accept that you're tired of having the same conversation over and over again.

Did you see the quote from the parent to my original comment?

I'll pull it out again: "you don't have to pay this back, and also there is no tuition"

That's all I'm responding to.