Politician's Intentions - Granite Grok

Politician’s Intentions

The letter below by Tony Boutin makes some excellent points about government actions and education in particular.  It appeared in the June 22, 2012, Laconia Daily Sun, http://issuu.com/dailysun/docs/lds6-22-12

While I agree with the author that politicians claim good intentions for all government actions driven by their policies, some politicians never seem to learn that the consequences of their policies rarely achieve their promised intentions and often provide bad results.  Thus, one has to wonder whether the claimed good intentions actually are the reasons for those policies.  Or, is the purpose of those policies something else such as political power driven by the growth of government and government union political  contributions (mostly to democrats), or the ease of getting votes by promising free stuff or benevolent sounding programs to voters who are ignorant of past failures?       Don

To the editor,

Education letters to The Daily Sun
have become popular since Kent Warner’s
offer of $50 for a catchy slogan.
I want to thank Kent for turning the
spotlight to it. Obama will surely be
trying to BUY professors, students and
their parents by promising increased
helicopter-style spending despite the
fact we are 17-trillion dollars in debt
and we recently got slapped in the
head with a credit downgrade.


Let me give you the PERFECT illustration
of how education manages to
FAIL and why that failure never stops
costing MORE. The failure ALWAYS
— and I repeat. ALWAYS — starts out
with the INTENT of the FEDERAL
government to do GOOD. Every failure
has that characteristic because without
it the ball of DOOM could never start
rolling down hill. Look at the housing
BUST. It was the INTENT of the federal
government to do good by letting
the poorest among us have ACCESS to
home ownership. Look where that good
intent landed us. We have the same
good intention of the federal government
in education and with the same
failed, UNBELIEVABLY COSTLY
ending Pell Grants (a gift of federal
money) for the very POOREST among
us started in 1972 as a way to help
defray the high costs of a college education.
By 2010 the POOREST became
DEFINED as SIXTY PERCENT of all
students attending college. Pell Grants
intentioned to help those who truly
could not get to college with out help
and who truly were excellent college
material have morphed to a giant TAXPAYER-
funded boondoggle made possible
by politicians trying to get elected
or remain ELECTED, LIKE OBAMA is
now. Pell grants from 2008 to 2010 have
risen an incredible 50-percent under
MR. SPEND, go bankrupt Obama.

PLAYING the government FOR
FREE MONEY has become a fulltime
“GAME” IN AMERICA. In order to
AVOID Pell Grant MEANS TESTING,
millions of students declare
them selves “ independents” freeing
themselves from family wealth assets
that would DISQUALIFY them from
getting the free hand outs of government
dough. Not surprisingly 60-percent
of all Pell Grants NOW go to
INDEPENDENTS while only 34-percent
go to non independents. Americans
in essence have figured out how

to hoodwink the government into
APPEARING as poor as possible to
qualify. This is classic FATAL FLAW
of EVERY welfare program and none
more true than qualifying for Medicaid.
If you need to be POOR people
will BECOME POOR on paper to gain
access the free MONEY.
It gets WORSE. The more affluent
middle class actually GAME the
system most by intentionally applying
to the most expensive colleges
($30,000 up) which often results in
larger grants if for no other reason
than they need more help (MONEY)
to attend. This is done far less by
the poorer students applying for Pell
Grants. If Uncle Sam gives you $2,000
to buy a VW but $10,000 to buy a Mercedes
what would you choose?
Colleges and universities figured out
LONG ago how to milk government
and students of all this money. They
ADJUST their price schedules accordingly.
Colleges just keep increasing
the tuition rates in direct relationship
to government benevolence. How
does it benefit ANYONE when we
give any student a $5,000 Pell Grant
and colleges raise the tuition by a
similar amount? Ever more federal
money to higher education has accomplished
ONE THING. It has provided
a DIRECT TAXPAYER-FUNDED
pipeline of money for 30 years of non
stop, increases in tuition hikes, often
DOUBLE the rate of inflation at every
college and university in AMERICA
ending in a 300-percent cost rise since
just 1990. Graduates are now drowning
in a RECORD ONE TRILLION
OF COLLEGE DEBT. Government
Pell Grants have been no more effective
at making the cost of higher education
CHEAPER for the poor than
government mandated/backed sub
prime lending was in making homes
cheaper for them. When ANYONE
going to buy ANYTHING leaves home
with with bags of FREE MONEY in
both hands provided by government
the price INCREASE for the item
desired will be directly proportional to
the amount of money in BOTH bags.
Anyone who thinks other wise is an
idiot, complete fool or a Democrat. The
final failure. Pell grant students have
LOWER graduation rates.
Tony Boutin
Gilford

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