Ragnar, lets say your state buys1000 laptops for $800 each. They could buy 4000 OLPC's instead, which are much more ruggedized for student use.

The only reason there are "needy" kids and families in america is because of the shitty political system and if you educate people (especially the "needy") they will grow up to vote for someone else so there will hardly be any political sentiment for this proposal (unless a couple of politicians are bought or are already on the board for some company making money of of this "deal").

My personal opinion is that there are LOTS of other ways to ensure that american kids get a decent education and can afford a computer if they'd want one. For starters you could all stop paying your illegal, unconstitutional income tax! That'll buy most people a decent computer in a very short while (as long as you've got an income...)!

You can buy a new computer with LCD and printer from Dell and others for like $400. Laptops for about the same. And they usually come with a dual core, a gig or two or RAM, big HDD, etc. Seems like even a "needy" person could cough up for one of these if he actually needed one.

Cheap laptops for needy kids? This is un-american!!!1 Intel will take care of those commies!

In other words, he wants Americans' tax money, and has no concern about the fact that he's looting taxpayers for his plan.