THE FOUNDATION
“History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people.” —Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Another day, another deadline. For the fourth time since April, the U.S. State Department extended its talks with Iran over the mullahs' nuclear program. The past few weeks have accomplished little, unless you take into account the 10 pounds of Twizzlers and 20 pounds of string cheese Team USA consumed during that time. The longer Iran stays at the negotiating table in Vienna, the more it gets. Earlier in the year, Barack Obama boasted that his administration’s diplomacy had halted Iran’s nuclear program, reduced its uranium stockpile and forced the country to agree to give nuclear inspectors access — any time, anywhere. Yet for some reason, the negotiation team has conceded these vital elements to a nuclear deal that would ensure Iran would not weaponize its nuclear material. In fact, the U.S. has conceded to Iran at least 12 times. Robert Joseph, who was once the U.S. special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation, said of the deal, “Instead of holding the line on those key issues that would actually determine whether the agreement was good or bad or whether it advances U.S. security interests or undermines them, the [Obama] administration has made concession after concession and the consequences are profound.” It is clear Iran is not sincerely negotiating with the West. Instead, it’s playing the same administration that negotiated with the Taliban, trading five of theirs doing time at Guantanamo for one deserter.
While the U.S. military is facing a myriad of threats, a smattering of merry little wars, the Obama administration is pushing forward with its plan to cut 40,000 troops from the ranks. According to apentagon document that USA Today acquired, the administration wants to finish drawing down America’s military capability by Sept. 30, 2018. In 2013, the Pentagon said a reduction of troops past 450,000 would start to impair the military’s ability to respond to crises around the world. And these cuts would bring military strength right to that edge. The further budget cuts imposed by Obama’s sequestration could push the number lower. For an example of how this hampers the U.S., look to the fight against the Islamic State. The Obama administration would rather train proxy fighters in Iraq and Syria — but just 60 Syrian fighters have so far been trained. On Monday, Barack Obama said the U.S. is ramping up the training of the Islamic State Iraqi forces. But the Senate Armed Services Committee found those training programs to be “anemic” and it called for reform of the airstrike campaign. If Obama continues these limp-wristed strategies, his only option will be to debate the Islamic State out of existence.
The Newseum Institute generates an annual survey called “State of the First Amendment,” and this year’s results illuminate the reason many Americans are nonchalant about the assault on religious liberty — because most have absolutely no idea that it’s constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. According to the 2015 survey, “When asked to name the five specific freedoms in the First Amendment, 57% of Americans name freedom of speech, followed by 19% who say the freedom of religion, 10% mention the freedom of the press, 10% mention the right to assemble, and 2% name the right to petition. Thirty-three percent of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.” Alarming, yes, but shocking? Not really. When education establishments become more interested in gender and sexual orientation studies than in civics, American heritage and character development, society cannot be expected to uphold Rule of Law.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
By Jim Harrington
Over the weekend, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in which he claims that college is not too expensive — because of all kinds of free money from the government. Tell that to middle-class families paying the full bill.
Alexander discusses some costs of attending college in modern America, and, while he admits that school can set you back a few bucks, he says not only are costs not as bad as advertised but there are numerous ways to pay for most of them.
“Public two year colleges … are free or nearly free for low-income students,” Alexander writes, and “community college tuition and fees average $3,300 per year.” Coincidently (or not), the average Pell Grant is also $3,300, though it can be as high as $5,775, depending on need. Even better, students can get 12 semesters of them, and since a grant needn’t be repaid, recipients are relieved of the need to find summer employment.
Using the University of Tennessee at Knoxville as an example of four-year schools, Alexander says tuition and fees average about $11,800 per year. Besides Pell Grants, students in Tennessee and some other states also have access to Hope Scholarships. For each of the first two years, the recipient gets $3,500, then $4,500 for years three and four. He says other “[s]tates run a variety of similar programs — $11.2 billion in financial aid in 2013, 85% in the form of scholarships.” Scholarships needn’t be repaid either.
Alexander extolls the virtue of government subsidies, but, if necessary, the student also has access to loans secured by the government. The College Board estimates that students from four-year schools will have an average of $27,000 in debt when they graduate, about the same as a new car loan.
Nationally, the current outstanding total of these loans is $1.2 trillion.
In closing, Alexander offers “five steps … to make it easier for students to finance their college education:”
- “Allow students to use Pell grants year-round…”
- “Simplify the confusing 108-question federal student-aid application…”
- Allow colleges to counsel students against too much borrowing.
- “Require colleges to share in the risk of lending to students…”
- Cut federal red tape that costs millions.
But recently published research doesn’t support Alexander’s love of federal college subsidies to students. In fact, according to David Lucca and Karen Shen of the New York Fed and Taylor Nadauld of Brigham Young University, tuition goes up 65 cents for every dollar of new loans or grants. “[W]hile one would expect student aid expansion to benefit recipients,” the pair say, “the subsidized loan expansion could [be] to their detriment, on net, because of the sizable and offsetting tuition effect.”
The study supports the Bennett Hypothesis, offered by William Bennett, education secretary under Ronald Reagan. He surmised that more government student aid meant universities could “blithely” raise tuition rates without enrollment suffering. Soaring student debt rather proves the point.
According to the Washington Examiner, researchers measured “differences in tuition changes at schools that had more or fewer students [taking advantage of increased] student loans, using data from the Department of Education. Not only did tuitions rise when Congress increased aid availability, but for-profit colleges saw their stocks jump.”
And if you think it’s expensive now, wait until Barack Obama makes it free.
Weighing in with his three-essay series in 2008 on the economics of college, economist Thomas Sowell explained why the cost of college tuition is so high.
“There are two basic reasons,” Sowell said. “The first is that people will pay what the colleges charge. The second is that there is little incentive for colleges to reduce the tuition they charge.”
Sowell discussed the notion of cost: “The inadequacy of resources to produce everything that everyone wants is the fundamental fact of life in every economy. … This means that the real cost of anything consists of all the other things that could have been produced with those same resources.”
Universities ignore the fact that, by constantly raising tuition and thus taking billions every year from the economy, they are simply reallocating resources that perhaps could be used more effectively than a four-year degree in gender studies. And because students can always get the funds to pay for tuition, colleges will always raise it.
As Sowell notes, “In a normal market situation, each competing enterprise has an incentive to lower prices if that would attract business away from competitors and increase its profits.”
But college isn’t the normal world. In fact, some who have tried to lower tuition have been “advised” against it by the American Association of University Professors because their accreditation might be revoked.
Higher education is a very high-stakes business, and, while academics may have the reputation of being soft, they won’t take cutting student aid without a fight. Today it’s more about building magnificent temples to academia and creating world-renowned reputations than passing on knowledge.
TODAY AT PATRIOTPOST.US
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
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OPINION IN BRIEF
Ben Shapiro: “On Monday, President Obama spoke about his new strategy to take on the terrorist entity Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. … Obama explained, ‘This is not simply a military effort. Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They’re defeated with better ideas.’ To cap off this airsickness bag of gobbledygook, Obama then concluded, ‘We will never be at war with Islam.’ … The victims of the Holocaust didn’t sit around thinking to themselves, ‘Golly, if only we’d been able to come up with a better idea than Nazism, that Hitler sure would have stopped all this nonsense.’ America didn’t end World War II by dropping informational leaflets. We dropped warning leaflets, then bombs. Large ones. Atomic ones. No armed ideologues in history have been defeated solely by better ideas — at least not before decades of murder, repression and evil. … When it comes to fighting the ideology of ISIS, however, Obama finds Americanism insufficient, since Americanism creates ISIS ideology through Islamophobia. That’s why Americans with guns can’t defeat ISIS, says Obama: Americans with guns create ISIS. Only internationalism can win the day! So far, that internationalism has been a massive failure. Of course, internationalism is always a massive failure, because it isn’t an idea, any more than ‘diplomacy’ is an idea. ”
SHORT CUTS
Insight: “Your silence gives consent.” —Plato (429-347 BC)
Upright: “I say this to Obama: ‘Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong.’ He’s dead wrong. … [G]lobal warming basically is a non-problem. Just leave it alone and it will take care of itself.” —Nobel laureate and physicist Ivar Giaever
Uh, no: “I believe that Jesus would approve of gay marriage. … I think Jesus would approve of any love affair that was honest and sincere, and was not damaging to anyone else. And I don’t think that gay marriage damages anyone else.” —Jimmy Carter
Non Compos Mentis: “Certainly the First Amendment says that in institutions of faith that there is absolute power to, you know, to observe deeply held religious beliefs. I don’t think it extends far beyond that.” —Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
A stopped clock is right twice a day: “Folks who do not like guns is fine [sic], but we have millions of people who are gun owners in this country; 99.9% of those people obey the law.” —Bernie Sanders
Hot air: “I have every confidence that during the course of this campaign, people will know who will fight for them when they need them, and that’s the person who I am and what I will do if I am president.” —Hillary Clinton (The late Christopher Stevens and his Benghazi colleagues were unavailable for comment.)
The BIG Lie: “Everything I did was permitted. There was no law, no regulation, there was nothing that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to communicate.” —Hillary Clinton on her secret email servers
Belly laugh of the week: “People should and do trust me.” —Hillary Clinton
And last… “Hillary Clinton infuriated reporters covering her at a July Fourth parade in New Hampshire by forcing them to stand behind a rope away from the street. She needed a little me-time. She had just heard Greece is about to run out of all its cash reserves, meaning she’ll never give a speech in Greece.” —Argus Hamilton
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.
