Sunday, January 4, 2009

More mendicants line up at the trough

I'm catching up on my newspaper reading by working my way through a stack that accumulated while I was busy with holiday-type nonsense. I see that a couple of weeks ago a new bunch of mooches has lined up for the federal handout of our money.

Thirty-six colleges and universities took out a two-page ad in the New York Times (where else?) to say how much they needed the feds to give them a mere $45 billion dollars to "build new facilities" and make good on "green" projects. Yeah, green, as in the color of the money some of us used to have. They also want it stipulated that the states can't use the fed grants to justify reducing their budgets. Smart!

I think we should give them the money.

But they should be willing to show us that they are serious. They get the money, but they have to agree that the school president and the board of trustees have to be publicly, on TV, executed for greed and incompetence— not to mention sheer chutzpah. Once that's done the schools get the checks.

It would be worth it.

3 comments:

Roxie said...

Agreed. Personally, I think these financial companies should have to forgive mortgages and credit card debt from those of us who have tried to keep up with our obligations. Instead of handing the money to Citibank et al, let's give the money to citizens and require them to pay their mortgages. But I guess ordinary people don't have deep enough pockets to influence decision makers in Washington.

Anonymous said...

I'll wager they don't lower tuition costs or student fees even if they get the federal largess.

Anonymous said...

I agree also. My ex's father was a former president of a large regional state university (think Southwest Blah Blah U.) and seemed to think the public should keep upping education spending for all public education, with no limits as it did sooooo much good. Never mind that the little so and sos are graduating knowing less than ever before, the degrees are worth less all the time, the athletic programs are bloated, minorities who are simply not ready for college litter campuses, and so forth. Hang 'em all!