Chet Edwards For Congress

February 27, 2006
Editorial: Where's shared sacrifice?

Waco Tribune Herald
By Editorial Staff | Waco Tribune Herald

We doubt a single college student exists who, when appraised of the deep budgetary hole this nation has dug for itself, wouldn't say, “I'll do my share to help get us out.”

Well, college students are doing more than their share.

Meanwhile, a lot of Americans are coasting.

Congressman Chet Edwards has brought rightful attention to what's being called the “student tax” - $11.9 billion in cuts from federal student assistance recently signed by President Bush.

Meanwhile, as Edwards points out, if Congress stays the course in extending Bush's tax cuts, someone making $1 million a year in dividends would be getting a $220,000 annual tax break.

Don't look now, but Bush's new budget looks to cut further into college aid, a move that will especially hurt the middle class.

While the poorest Americans will continue to qualify for Pell grants, as well they should, and the wealthiest continue to accumulate tax-deferred college savings accounts, those in the middle with no other student aid will rely on work-study and college loans.

In the debilitating hit on college aid, students are seeing where reality clashes with rhetoric in the political world, particularly when tax cuts are put ahead of government's obligations.

It is common to talk about cutting budgets “across the board,” but that's not what happens. We have soldiers fighting overseas. Even in peacetime the military budget generally will be hands-off. It makes up roughly one-half of what's called discretionary spending. The big tickets of non-discretionary spending are entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, and interest on the national debt (which accounts for about 16 cents of ever dollar the government spends.) That leaves such things as education and veterans services vulnerable to plundering - that is, if exorbitant tax cuts are considered sacrosanct.

College students would offer to help dig this nation out its hole, but what has been done to them is punitive. Congress should step back and ask, “Is the sacrifice being shared?”