The South Gibson Star-Times serves the towns of Haubstadt, Owensville and Fort Branch.
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A-8 Tuesday, November 2, 2021 South Gibson Star-Times President Joe Biden and Vice Pres- ident Kamala Harris' free communi- ty college plan will increase costs for both students and taxpayers. Fortunately, the Biden-Harris promise of free community college appears less likely to make it into the final version of the Build Back Better Act, the $ 3.5 trillion tax-and- spend plan currently under debate in Congress. The proposed provision for tui- tion-free community college would dole out $109 billion in grants to states so that students can attend two-year colleges without paying tuition. Taxpayers would foot the tu- ition bill starting in 2023. Currently, the average sticker price for community college in the United States is about $ 3,000. How- ever, the average cost per student is actually close to $18,000. Most of the discrepancy accounts for state and local appropriations and feder- al grants to the institutions. The rest consists of smaller grants and appro- priations. Moreover, most students who need financial assistance already receive it via Pell Grants as well as state and institutional grants. Ac- counting for financial assistance, the national average amount paid by stu- dents for tuition and fees at public two-year colleges is negative $220, meaning that many students actual- ly receive more than the cost of at- tendance in student aid. The Build Back Better program would mostly benefit those who are already cover- ing the relatively modest cost of com- munity college on their own. With taxpayers already covering most of the cost of this investment in the form of direct appropriations and grants, do we see benefits of these drastic subsidies of community col- lege? Community col- lege completion rates are abysmal. According to the Na- tional Center for Ed- ucation Statistics, only 16.3% of stu- dents at two-year in- stitutions graduate in two years, with 28.7% completing their de- gree in three years, and 34.2 % completing their two-year degree in four. These statistics sug- gest that it could be more beneficial for students to spend those years get- ting work experience rather than a degree. Since the advent of widely avail- able federal government subsidiza- tion of higher education beginning in 1965, there have been massive in- creases in tuition prices without a corresponding increase in access or quality. Further subsidization under the Build Back Better plan will con- tinue to inflate prices and shift the in- creased costs onto taxpayers. Free community college will al- so continue the trend of degree in- flation. More subsidies lead to more graduates—but not more skills— which leads to the need for more de- grees to differentiate oneself. As the Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey ex- plains: The average college degree has come to represent less and less hu- man capital, as college attendance, fueled in large part by government aid, has skyrocketed. Exacerbat- ing the situation, employers—who bear none of the costs themselves— have been increasingly able to de- mand degrees, which have largely become signals of ba- sic attributes, such as persistence, baseline intelligence, and little more … One piece of evidence supporting the signaling hypothe- sis is an increase in em- ployers calling for col- lege degrees in adver- tisements for jobs that previously did not re- quire the credential— and for which the needed skills ap- pear largely unchanged. "Free" community college will ex- acerbate this phenomenon. For ex- ample, while a high school diploma was sufficient for 26.2 % of human re- sources specialist jobs in 2004, it was sufficient for only 8 % by 2015. Most human resource specialist positions now require applicants to possess some form of higher education, even while the job duties remain largely unchanged. The cost of "free" community col- lege will also add to the mounting $28.9 trillion national debt, the bur- den of which is placed on taxpayers. If the data surrounding commu- nity college is not enough, we have the example of free college in Europe foreshadowing what will likely hap- pen here in the U.S. In Europe, tax- payer-funded "free" higher educa- tion has resulted in overcrowding, reduced access, and fewer academ- ic resources per student. Institutions improve with increased competition, not through government interven- tion and subsidies. Rather than building back bureau- Give America a new birth of freedom in Virginia The joke goes that a slip of the tongue for a politician means that they accidentally said what they ac- tually believe. Now Democrats are trying to clean up the mess created by Virginia Democratic candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe, when he said in a debate on Sept. 28, "I don't think par- ents should be telling schools what they should teach." McAuliffe's 5 -point lead over his opponent, Republican Glenn Youn- gkin, who has made parental con- trol in education a central issue in his campaign, has disappeared. Big-name Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, are now showing up in Virginia with a mop and pail. Vice President Ka- mala Harris sent a video to over 300 Black churches statewide, urging support for McAuliffe. According to some opinions, Harris' politicking for McAuliffe in churches violates either or both the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt entities such as churches from electioneer- ing, and the Hatch Act, which prohib- its federal government officials from using their position to influence the outcome of an election. Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, Virginia's first Black governor, has weighed in saying he believes churches will jeopardize their tax-exempt status if they show Harris' video. McAuliffe followed up with an ad claiming what he said is being mis- construed and that he really meant the opposite. Comedian Groucho Marx once quipped "Who are you going to be- lieve — me or your own eyes? " Panic among Democrats is well-founded in that Blacks consti- tute approximately 20 percent of vot- ers in Virginia and can make all the difference in the outcome of the elec- tion. And Blacks poll strongly in fa- vor of parental choice in education. In 2018, Republican candidate Ron DeSantis defeated Black Democrat- ic candidate Andrew Gillum by less than 40,000 votes in the gubernatori- al election in Florida. One reason was DeSantis got 18 percent of the vote of Black women. This was most like- ly Black mothers expressing appre- ciation for the 100,000 low-income children attending private schools through tax-credit funded scholar- ships provided through the Step Up for Students program. If anything positive has come out of COVID-19, it has driven home to many parents the implications of gov- ernment and politically controlled schools. Given the central importance of education to a child's future, more parents are becoming aware of grave implications of losing control of when and where their children are taught, how they are taught and what they are taught. McAuliffe's accidental moment of truth put out for all to see what Democrats are really about. They are casting a wider and stronger net of government and political control of almost every aspect of our lives. The core American value of freedom has all but disappeared. More Black parents are sensitive to the crisis in the Black family. Do they really want progressive politi- cians defining sexuality for their chil- dren? But this is what is happening. Thirty states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education in public schools. Log onto the website of either of the major teachers unions — Nation- al Education Association and Ameri- can Federation of Teachers. Both in- clude the commitment to LGBTQ values. What about Black parents, or par- ents of any ethnicity, that reject this worldview? What about Black par- ents, or parents of any ethnicity, who want their child's education about sexuality to be defined by traditional Biblical views of love and marriage? In a recent Pew Research survey, 59 percent said Americans disagree on "basic facts." In a country where there's not even consensus about what reality is — what is true and what is false — how can we possibly have a gov- If you think the supply chain prob- lems, empty shelves in stores and higher inflation are problems now, wait a few weeks; they are likely to get worse. And this isn't a result of hurricanes, the pandemic or other acts of nature. It's all due to politi- cal incompetence that starts in the Oval Office. Here's one prominent reason the supply shortage of goods from fruits and vegetables to gasoline to toys for Christmas will go from a headache to a crisis. We are now witnessing the end of four decades of labor peace in Amer- ica. Two prominent companies, Kel- logg's and John Deere, face strikes with thousands of workers walking off the job. The United Auto Workers strike against John Deere is the first labor unrest at the large Illinois plant since the mid-1980s. Kellogg's last had a work stoppage in 1972. We already have nearly 11 million unfilled jobs thanks to super-gener- ous welfare benefits. The shortage of dockworkers, truckers and factory workers is inciting higher inflation due to shortages. Now, if thousands of more workers in critical industries go on strike, havoc could prevail. The worker shortages only give more leverage to the unions to walk off the job for higher pay and bene- fits. The John Deere workers balked at a proposed 5% raise — and not without cause. With inflation run- ning closer to 6 % , a 5% raise could mean a loss in real income to the rank-and-file workers. Here's the vicious cycle we could be looking at in due time. Inflation means higher prices at the stores, which means workers want higher pay, which means companies have higher costs, which means the firms have to raise their prices further. And the pro- cess repeats. Six per- cent inflation could snowball into 8 % to 10 % inflation by the end of the year. Yikes. History proves that mismanagement of the money supply and a dollar that loses val- ue causes convulsions in the labor market. E.J. Antoni, an economist at the Texas Public Policy Founda- tion, recently ran the numbers. An- nual inflation spiked to 7.9 % for 1951, and a record 470 strikes occurred the following year. In the late 1960s, in- flation rose to 5.4% , and the number of strikes rose above 400 in a single year. But as price volatility moderat- ed starting in the Ronald Reagan years, so did strikes. A stable dollar that was "as good as gold" retained its value and allowed labor and man- agement to reach mutually agreeable contracts on wage increases. From 1947 to 1982, a period of many strikes, inflation rose and fell wildly, with the annual rate chang- ing as much as 8.7 percentage points in a single year and having a 14.5 percentage point range from -1% to 13.5% . Suddenly, it feels as though we are in a "Back to the Future" sequel with Michael J. Fox. Rising prices and a slowdown in the economy — the worst of all worlds. I predict that there will be many more strikes in the months ahead. Unions will flex their muscles in part be- cause they have Joe Biden in the White House, who genuflects in front of the union bosses who spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his cam- paign. Reagan famous- ly fired illegally strik- ing air traffic control- lers in 1981. Does anyone believe Biden would ever have the backbone to do that? Bottlenecks now squeeze a supply chain that was once the hallmark of American economic efficiency at ev- ery turn. It's getting worse, and the unions and their rank-and-file work- ers paying higher bills aren't happy. Nor should they be. History shows that strikes are a form of mutually assured destruc- tion. Both sides generally lose in the long term from work stoppages — and so does America. The best way for Washington to ensure long-term worker gains, for union or nonunion workers, is to get inflation, which is a de facto wage tax, under control. It would help if Congress would cease and desist from spending and borrowing tril- lions of dollars we don't have because this could ignite even faster inflation. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at FreedomWorks. He is also a co-found- er of the Committee to Unleash Pros- perity and a Washington Examiner columnist. race for the Cure By Star Parker Heritage viewpoint By John Schoof Biden promotes free college, not so fast Give me a break By John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Will all of America go on strike? Lessons from Venezuela Democrats say President Joe Biden won "a strong mandate." His government can do all sorts of good things! I don't believe he has a mandate, but thanks to the selfishness of for- mer President Donald Trump, Dem- ocrats control Congress, and that may give them power to shove their worst ideas down our throats. Those include: No. 1: Hate speech laws. No. 2: Expanding the Supreme Court. No. 3: Gun control. No. 4: Spending much more. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have noticed that these "reforms" were just tried in a country near us. My new video reveals how they worked out (spoiler alert: badly). Venezuela became progressives "it" country when Hugo Chavez be- came president. Celebrities like Danny Glover, Su- san Sarandon and Michael Moore showered him with praise. Sean Penn called him "one of the most important forces we've had on this planet." "You have to be blind to believe that," responds Andres Guilarte of The Fund for American Studies. Guilarte is one of many Venezu- elans who risked his life to protest socialist rule. When the protests failed, he came to the United States as a refugee. Today, protest is even riskier in Venezuela, because of progressive reform No. 1: the "Law Against Ha- tred." Half America's Democrats sup- port that, says a YouGov poll. They should rethink what they want, says Guilarte, because "the ruling party ... (gets to decide) what hate speech is." In Venezuela, critics of the gov- ernment now face jail time. No. 2: Some Democrats want to add four new justices to the Supreme Court. Sen. Ed Markey says the new justices would "restore balance" af- ter years of Republican rule. Chavez added justices to Venezu- ela's Supreme Court. He "changed it from 20 people to 32 people," says Guilarte. A fter that, "the court never ruled against him." It let him shut down opposition me- dia and confiscate 1,000 private busi- nesses. No. 3: American Democrats want gun control. In Venezuela now, only the army, police and certain favored groups may have guns. That made it even easier for officials to come to peo- ple's homes and take their property. "You're just in your shop, selling shoes," explains Guilarte. "Some government officer arrives and says, 'We're going to shut down your busi- ness.' That would be completely dif- ferent if that business owner had a gun." "But the government would just come in with bigger guns," I sug- gest. "If we had a culture like you have in the U.S.," Guilarte responds, "It would have been incredibly diffi- cult." Venezuela's gun control didn't even reduce crime. In fact, Vene- zuela's murder rate rose. Venezue- la now has the third-highest murder rate in the world. "These laws never work," says Guilarte. "Citizens don't have guns. But the criminals have bigger guns! " No. 4: The most important lesson from Venezuela is the idea that gov- ernments can fund whatever they want to do simply by printing more money. "The Federal government can never run out of money," says Mod- ern Monetary Theory economist Stephanie Kelton. She's convinced politicians that they can spend much more without worrying about infla- tion. "Well, of course, John," replies Guilarte, sarcastically. "That's how the economy works. You just print money because money comes up from trees." Venezuela printed money and won praise from progressives by spend- ing some on programs they said would help the poor. But the poor and the middle class were crushed by the inflation that followed: 20 percent ... then 100 percent ... 3,000 percent ... 40,000 percent! This de- stroyed Venezuela. Inflation in America has risen See VENEZUELA on page 9 See FREEDOM on page 9 See FREE COLLEGE on page 9