The Blue Social Model failure – because the Democrats / Progressives / Socialists have no limiting factor beyond which Government should not tread, their main goal is not helping people but finding / taking money to feed their ideologic fix (that Government must be all things to all people doing anything they want it to). So, they wage war and go where the money is…
…even it is from one of their main bases of support – the Ivory Tower. If you are a conservative, ya just gotta smile on this Blue on Blue $$ fight. After all, Progressives in Government truly believe they know better how to spend your money – even if it is from other Progressives that are churning out more Blue foot soldiers: Blue Civil War Escalates (emphasis mine):
Connecticut Democrats are going after Yale, for the same reason Henry VIII went after the monks and Willie Sutton went after the banks.
There is a widespread (and well-founded) perception that the top university endowments are approaching irrational levels—Yale’s chief Ivy League rival has been called a large hedge fund with a small research institute attached to it.
Meanwhile, desperate cities and states—caught between the unplayable pension promises created by decades of irresponsible governance, bloated workforces organized into unions that keep asking for more, poor residents wanting and needing more basic services, and rich residents threatening to flounce out of town unless they get more ‘amenities’—have no choice but to scrounge under the couch cushions for extra cash. And university endowments are a prime target. . . .
From the point of view of much of the public, highly-endowed colleges are becoming an underperforming asset: The feeling is growing that elite fat cat universities are an expensive luxury, and that the money spent propping up their endowments would be better spent buying school lunches for needy kids, or topping off up the pensions of retired civil servants.
For many years, colleges have fended off the fiscal claims of local authorities by pointing to the jobs they create and to the spending of their students and staff. These were and are valid arguments, but the great American private universities are going to have to take a hard look at what else they can do to make more friends among the general public and, consequentially, among politicians.
Once Henry VIII discovered that you could squeeze gold coins from wealthy monastic foundations, he decided to squeeze harder. American politicians are no stupider than he was, and the need for revenue to feed Big Blue Machine is continuing to grow. The people who rule the Ivory Tower should start to take note.
So what is the unintended consequence here? Surely it is easy to see – donor dry up. After all, WHY would I, a successful person, plop down a megabuck (or lots of multiples thereof) into Yale’s coffers knowing that the Tax Man cometh in a femto-second to haul it away? Also:
- irrational levels
- the money spent propping up their endowments would be better spent buying school lunches for needy kids, or topping off up the pensions of retired civil servants.
- to make more friends
So, once again, we see the Progressive “tells”:
Progressives are thinking that Yale has made enough money,
Progressives have MUCH better ideas on how to spend that money
And are dang willing to make Yale dance to the Progressive tune – engage in Crony Capitalism as you have a great endowment fund there; would be bad if something were to happen to it.
Now, given this, it is clear that these Democrat “legal theirve
(H/T: Instapundit)
