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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: techguerrilla who wrote (70396)	1/2/2005 8:32:21 PM
From: Augustus Gloop	Respond to of 89467

Its just not fair! My wife was like Carla Tortelli in terms of getting pregnant LOL

To: techguerrilla who wrote (70396)	1/3/2005 8:13:51 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Students get a lump of coal from Bush toledoblade.com Article published Monday, January 3, 2005 WASHINGTON - A couple of days before the night before Christmas, thousands of the nation's college students found someone left a big lump of coal in their backpacks. Just call him President Scrooge. Yes, for a man who likes to call himself an education president, it didn't take President Bush long to break one of his proudest education promises. As recently as his final debate with Sen. John Kerry, the President promised to "continue to expand Pell grants to make sure that people have an opportunity to start their career with a college diploma." That sounded great. I like to hear presidents talk about improving educational opportunities. Take it from me, children, nothing beats a good education in distinguishing the movers and shakers of this world from those who get moved and shaken. And the federal scholarships known as Pell grants have been a spectacular success in encouraging poor and middle-income young people who might otherwise not quite be able to afford to go to college or stay enrolled. Almost all of the 5.3 million Pell recipients come from families earning less than $40,000 a year who, as any parent of college students can tell you, face a steep climb. College costs have risen 14 percent in the past year alone. One federal study in the mid-1990s found that a mere $1,000 increase in the average Pell Grant would raise undergraduate retention rates by at least 15 percent. Considering the overall benefits that an educated population brings to our society, that sounds like a bargain. But two days before Christmas, the Bush Administration gave those struggling students an unwelcome surprise: A new Pell Grant eligibility formula that will knock 80,000 to 90,000 students off the eligibility rolls in 2005 and slash grants to 1.3 million others, according to two studies. (Congress' Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance conducted one of the analyses. The other came from the American Council on Education, which represents about 1,800 colleges and universities.) Happy holidays, kids. Yet, the administration, its allies in the Republican-dominated Congress, and its predictable cheerleaders in conservative talk radio insist that Pell Grants will, as Mr. Bush said in his debate and in his convention acceptance speech, "continue to expand." How? Well, to paraphrase an earlier president, it all depends on what your definition of "expand" is. Total Pell grant recipients are expected to grow because the overall demand is growing. But some students will find their grants reduced or eliminated because the administration and Congress chose this time to update for the first time since 1988 the figures for state taxes on which eligibility is based. That means the more your state cut its taxes during the 1990s economic boom, the more likely your household will be viewed as too wealthy - on paper, anyway - to receive federal college aid, even though most state's taxes have been rising again in recent years. The Department of Education first proposed the formula change in 2003 for the 2004 fiscal year, but legislation pushed by Sen. Jon S. Corzine, a New Jersey Democrat, blocked its implementation. This year the Bush Administration pushed the Republican-led Congress to allow the changes. Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, succeeded in getting the Corzine amendment dropped when Congress passed its omnibus spending bill in mid-November. The formula change will cost some families but save the government $300 million in the 2005-2006 academic year, the administration estimates. That sounds like a lot of money standing by itself, but it sounds pretty puny next to the spending bill's $388 billion price tag, the $400-plus billion deficit's size or the $1.9 trillion - with a "t" and an "r"- that the Bush tax cuts are expected to cost in revenue reductions over the next 10 years. With that in mind, the President's contraction of the reach of Pell grants would not sound so cynical had he not promised so often to "expand" them. As far back as his 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush proposed raising the maximum award to $5,100. Instead, the maximum grant will remain at $4,050 a year in 2005, unchanged for the third consecutive year. Yet Mr. Bush gets away with this wordplay as smoothly as Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." But all is not lost for young folks seeking federal help with their college costs. For example, the military is offering some generous education packages - and it looks like there's going to be lots of spending at the Defense Department for some time to come. __________________________ Clarence Page's column is distributed by Tribune Media Services.