Hello Tim,

 TR>>> why pay anything? It'll all be free!'

 TR>>> It's time some of them were held accountable.

 >> Over the last thirty years, college tuition has increased
 >> by over 1,120 percent.  That is according to the Wall Street
 >> Journal.  I'll take those numbers as being credible.

 >> The cost of college tuition has increased three times
 >> faster than the consumer-price index.  And twice as fast
 >> as medical care.  That is in the last ten years.

 TR> That's because the government is footing the bill for a large number of
 TR> those `going' on student loans.

Loans are paid back, with interest, over time.  Students gain
by getting an education, thus better jobs.  Taxpayers gain, as
the cost is repaid, with interest, plus future taxes (revenue)
are increased as a result of students graduating (better job
offers equating better pay meaning higher taxes).

 TR> Any time you get the government (make that read `taxpayers') paying out
 TR> money to fund something...outfits are gonna milk it for everything they
can
 TR> get.

Oh, come now.  You have to spend money to make money.  The best
way to do that is by spending other people's money, rather than
your own.  Now doesn't that make sense?  I mean, that is the
purpose of government, is it not?  Government is supposed to work
for us, given the fact that government is us.

Getting government to fund something that benefits me is a good
thing.  If you could get government to fund something that benefitted
you, you would undoubtedly think it would be a good thing as well.

Making college free would benefit everyone, not just you and me.
Why?  Because those graduates would then be earning higher incomes,
meaning they would be paying higher taxes, thus enabling government
to increase the number of government programs.  See how that works?

 TR> My anger gets raised whenever I see some high-falutin professor or in
 TR> industrialist get in front of  microphone and start off by saying how
 TR> honest and upright their `opponent' or competitor `ought' to be...and then
 TR> without batting an eye start talking about how `costs' are going up so
 TR> their prices or tuition is going up as well!

It's all relative.  So what if the cost of gas is $100 a gallon?
If you have the dough to buy the gas, everything is fine.  But if
the cost of gas is 25 cents a gallon and you do not have the dough,
then what does it matter what the cost is?  Right now, the cost
of oil is $29 a barrel.  There are 42 gallons of oil in 1 barrel.
Do the math.  What is the cost of gas today?  Talk about do a 69.

 TR> A good example of that was the `$600 ash trays they were installing in jet
 TR> aircraft built for the military.

That was either an accounting error (most probable), or a glitch.
Hard to imagine being an intentional act, as that would be considered
being a form of embezzlement (very illegal).

 TR> That would have made me, as a congressman on a military purchasing
 TR> committee, demand a close scrutiny of any and all government contracts set
 TR> up for the military.

There are bound to be some (accounting) errors, especially in areas
of defense, given the massive costs necessary to spend in order to
keep this nation safe.

 TR> They probably never did.

Look at the OMB.  It is massive.  Spending on defense is just part
of that budget.  There will be some errors, not just in the area
of defense.  That does not mean $600 per ashtray or hammer or other
trinket is actually spent.

 TR> Or if the did it was quickly glossed over because the `taxpayer' is the
 TR> biggest cash cow in the nation!

Computer dollars and real dollars are often two very different things.
The so-called $$$ that politicians often cite as having been cut from
the budget are fictional $$$.  Those $$$ never existed in the first
place.  Cutting nonexistent funds and then claiming to have cut the
budget is a form of gloating that many politicians have mastered.

An example is food stamps.  Everybody who needs food stamps is
able to get them.  The (annual) total amount of food stamps equates
to the cost of 5 fighter aircraft.  Only about 30 percent of the
total amount of food stamps are actually "spent" (administered by
states to those who need them).  Politicians then "cut" the food
stamp budget, so as to do away with government waste.  But no
actually funds are actually cut.  It is just computer dollars.
The same number of people continue to get the same number of
food stamps.  But on paper, the federal budget was "cut" by
a certain percentage.

Meanwhile, inflation continues to rise.  Taxes on the middle
class continues to rise.  Underemployment continues to rise.

Salaries for working people have remained stagnant.  The costs
of health care continues to rise.  The costs for those on fixed
incomes continues to rise.  No COLA in three of the past seven
years for those on social security ...

Republicans want to nominate a billionaire for president.
Democrats are flirting with the idea of nominating a socialist.

What is this world coming to?

Scary thought, isn't it?

--Lee

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