I’m with you on substance. I guess I just read your analogy and thought that the same people who feel wronged that they saved while someone else didn’t and they all got the same free college also feel wronged that they packed a lunch and someone else didn’t and they all got the same pizza.
I don’t think this is really a problem of a contemporary ideology, though. There’s a parable about this, the workers in the vineyard. It’s an issue with how we perceive fairness that has been around for thousands of years.
It’s not whether someone felt wronged, it’s whether they were wronged in any significant way. Of course people can feel slighted over any thing in the world.
People who would resent other people getting education because they were saving for it and instead all they got was a bank account of worthless cold hard cash, aren’t significantly wronged, no matter what they feel in the moment.
I can’t feel much sympathy for a person who saved up to buy an umbrella giving the evil eye to other people enjoying a sunny day, especially when they still have the money they saved.
It is insofar as the kind of “free” market fundamentalism espoused by Libertarians is baked into the default economic consensus of the industrialised West.
It’s an issue caused by ancient assumptions that modern nation-states should have transcended long ago except for Randroid arseholes like the “job creator” vineyard owner (“Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” – straight from the Bible) and the entitled rubes he screwed over who ultimately are more prone to blame their fellow workers.
The suckers who started working for this greedpig vineyard owner at 6AM didn’t have the option of joining a union or voting for government representatives who’d ensure fair wages. The current crop of conservative marks don’t have that excuse and instead still act like ancient peasants.
Well yes and no. Most of the funding for public primary education currently comes from the states, with a small fraction coming from the federal government. So funding public colleges mostly with federal money would be a bit different. (Not that it’s a bad idea!!)
I’m curious about some of the details, especially how the plan will handle the major disparities between the quality and availability of public universities across different states. Some states are much better about supporting their universities than others, and most states provide much lower tuition for in-state residents. So if you happen to live in one of the crappy states, would the federal program pay for the higher tuition if you wanted to study out of state? If so, how does the federal program keep states from gaming the system, encouraging the more lucrative out of state students to study there? I’m sure there are solutions but due to the hodgepodge of systems across different states there are a lot of complexities to solve, much like there were with the affordable care act.
The point that most of the posters you are criticizing are making is, the 529 account complaint is a red herring. 1. It is likely the whole value would be easily consumed in room, board, & other educational (and thus 529 plan OK) expenses, 2. even if it’s not, full-tuition scholarships already exempt 529 plans from penalties, and 3. even if that somehow doesn’t apply, the taxes and penalties only affect the interest earned, not the “principal” value of the 529 plan savings.
Maybe! But details really matter. Does that mean entirely removing the States’ role in funding of the state universities? If so, would the funding of state universities such as some of the great ones in California fall prey to the whims of legislators from other states who might not care much for public education?
To be clear, I support Warren, she’s currently at the top of my list in the Democratic primarily, but I’m just looking for more details to better understand this proposal and all of its pros and cons.
not to mention, we all benefit from an educated populace. it’s a public investment. the republicans laud “job creators”? great. let’s make more of them. ( ugh. job creators. not republicans. let’s make fewer of those. )
True. But some people want a bigger slice of a smaller pie, rather than the other way around, even if in the latter case their share would be bigger in absolute terms.
