Guess who wants a $45 billion bailout now
With the Big Three seeking a bailout from Washington, the Big Ten are following suit. Earlier this week the Carnegie Corporation of New York took out a two-page ad in the New York Times, signed by executives of 36 public universities, state university systems and higher-education associations, urging Congress and President-elect Obama to rescue them.
Mr. Obama has already promised to expand federal subsidies to higher education by increasing Pell grants and making student-loan terms more permissive. The university chiefs seek an additional “federal infusion of capital” — as much as $45 billion — to build new facilities, especially “green” ones. “To ensure a rapid response, only projects that are shovel-ready or on which construction can begin within 120-180 days should be funded,” says the ad.
Source: WSJ
How long will the government have money enough to keep bailing out Banks, auto companies and now universities? The American taxpayers are starting to ask themselves where is this money going to come from? Obama can’t raise taxes on the companies cause they are all going backrupt or being gave Taxpayers money. He can’t raised taxes on the rich as they are the ones that own the businesses that are not making enough money to make ends meet. Let see who is left to tax…yes you got it the middle class working Americans!
LINKS:
(1) I Can Haz Edukashun? Obama’s Education Secretary Fails At Just 17% On Proper Reading Level
In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools – the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001.
(2) Universities request federal economic stimulus money
Most of the money would go to public institutions, which educate 80 percent of all college students, although private schools could qualify.
(3) Next in the bailout line…
$45 billion in public handouts for telephone and cable companies?!?!
Astounding. Higher education may be the biggest racket of them all. I’d like to see federal funding yanked altogether, and most state funding.
I guess I shouldn’t really be astounded. Here’s one of ScrappleFace’s imaginary news stories from a few months back.
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=3113
Does anyone wonder where all this money is coming from? Remember back when the democratic control congress couldn’t find the money to pay for safer equipment for our young men and women in Iraq? Now they seem to have so much money that they are giving it away to the rich and famous!
Also remember back when the government gave the American people a whopping $300.oo?
People we have a problem in Washington DC and its going to get worst now that we will have a big spending liberal president in office!
Yeah, edumacation is unnecessary in today’s world, according to bookworms such as yourselves.
Most of us think it is important, however.
A “bailout” is when the government supports (supposedly) for-profit corporations operating in the (supposedly) “free enterprise economy”.
Public support of public education isn’t a bailout. It’s funding an important societal interest.
goodtimepolitics: So where is the trillions of dollars that your savior will bail out and buy all these companies and schools coming from diogenes? The big 10 pays out big bucks in sports to get the top players..they’re a scam!
“Most of us think it is important, however.”
Yes, and that is why education spending is perennially popular; but you’re wrong. How does a college education benefit society? I can see where certain basic skills — literacy, numeracy, “citizenship skills” — could be construed as a public good. But how do college credits benefit anyone but the person who gets the training and the credentials? What, in other words, is the case for subsidizing higher education?
The thing that really makes my blood boil concerning the bailouts is watch Barney Frank
blather about how tough times are.
Geez, Barney, you, Chris Dodd, Cox, and the whole black caucus share a bunch of responsibility for this whole mess.
This definitely was the biggest “October Surprise” of all time.
David
That they do David Biba!
Good point by Biba. The Dems and the media have one month to establish that 1) things are just awful and will remain just awful for years, and 2) this is George Bush’s fault, so don’t look at us like that.
Most people seem to think that a better educated work force is a good thing.
A smearing remark deleted by goodtimepolitics
Sure it is. More formal education usually equals better job. But why should taxpayers subsidize an individual’s college investment (college is just trade school now) when there’s no evidence that the payoff accrues to anyone but the individual himself?
I would have added a smearing remark there, but I was afraid GTP would delete it.
He was trying to smear us and not anyone else. He has a problem! It was stupid. Its nice to have this delete button. LOL
It’s the way of the Left.
That a way
Mark Steyn links a college kid writing about college
http://tinyurl.com/9whoew
Some thoughts
1) About half of college kids drop out. Now, from a career standpoint, even a year or two of college yields a pay premium, if only a small one, but I don’t doubt that most of these kids matriculated with a four-year degree in mind. In any case, much of what we, as an economy, spend on higher education is purely wasted.
2) A large fraction of the kids who do endure — most of them, I suspect — leave with nothing much to show for their time other than some more or less marketable job skills that they could have acquired much more quickly without Anthropology 101 and Spanish 102 (twice). No one needs four years to learn accounting or specialty IT skills. The bogus degree requirement, which is effectively a subsidy for the higher ed lobby, is the result of the “professionalization” trend in many lines of work, a device to restrict entry. And a sad effect of this racket is the prolongation of adolescence, with consequent social costs that may prove insupportable.
3) Years ago, a high school education was often much superior to today’s college education in every way except beer. Now the clever boys and girls go off to college to acquire the skills and the (presently much decayed) knowledge base that they would already have mastered had they been born before the government high schools began their long decline.
College is unnecessary for most and, nowadays, unrewarding for nearly all, except as an arbitrary credential. Why do we throw so much money at it?
So we don’t wind up with a GTP-filled nation of morons?
DELETE DELETE DELETE lmao
goodtimepolitics: There you go deleting yourself diogenes, I didn’t have to do anything this time.