Chose Willie, as opposed to say, Snoop Dogg or other high profile stoners, to include the additional wry joke of his past with the IRS. Maybe he wouldn’t mind now, or maybe he would I have no idea, but there was a time when he minded enough to get in quite a bit of trouble with the IRS.
(also, just having fun with her wording)
It’s nice to see someone be good at their job.
Anyone else realize during that interaction: Wait-- she’s asking all the questions, whats going on?
Also, pretty sure this reporter is not OAN/Newsmax (ie, the usual person to ask a Tom Cotton question)-- why is he carrying water for OAN/Newsmax/Tom Cotton? Ask a normal question about a normal policy proposed by a normal Congressperson.
I used to think that that smile was a bemused “oh you just stepped in it” smile…
I’m almost thinking it’s predatory now.
(and oh so rarely does one feel inherently supportive of an overpowered predator shredding it’s prey, but in this case…)
That’s almost…
I’m always wary of the “the Y tax will go to fund X.” Lots of states got talked into allowing greater gambling through this kind of “but think of the good we can do” kind of argument.
Yes, obviously we can use money to fund things we want. What is the best way to raise this money? is NEVER the question, and it ought to be. University endowments, in some cases, are huge. In other cases, not so much. Taxing them, like all other investment income, is a conversation worth having, but it should be out of the context that “job training” is at stake.
She mentioned in an interview that she plans to leave after a year, sadly.
By asking the question they gave their consent… so it is ethical for her to do it, and it is ethical for you to watch it and enjoy it. 
Exactly. It’s like watching a cat play with a wounded mouse for a while before the final kill. You may have the instinct that something is wrong, but this specific mouse has been raiding your cupboard and pooping everywhere for years…
“he’s claimed that there’s a liberal bias on campus that, uh, targets conservatives…”
Conservatives have been saying this for decades. I can tell you from my experience in college that the majority of the other students were racist, sexist, homophobic and close-minded (in other words, conservatives) despite some of my amazing professors trying very hard to teach them otherwise.
Did you type this comment while under a bridge? I can’t tell.
I pointed out that universities are tax exempt because, in therory, they are investing in education. In practice the wealthiest schools have trillions invested in Wall street financial groups that give no shits about education. Requiring that some of that money be invested in public ed would be really helpful.
Your reply was:
legalized gambling has consequences
not all schools
this could be reframed as about “job training” and thats bad
Apart from everything else… don’t those reporters have any self-regard? They should know by now that this kind of statement will garner a sharp retort, that is, they’ll get their clock cleaned in public and on camera.
And by a woman! Yes, a lady, femme, mujer, donna! If they wish to project a macho persona, why don’t they try to avoid this, which is surely quite the humiliation? That’s what stumps me (unless they are super-secretly into it, but thaaat’s another department entirely).
God but I love her.
I’m not expressing an opinion on taxing endowments. I’m expressing my annoyance that discussions about taxes seem to inevitably tie the tax to some presumed benefit, as if money weren’t fungible. Maryland was sold on expanding gambling on the idea that we needed the money for education.The “thought” was “since we need education, we must have gambling” rather than having a conversation about what would be the best place to find money to fund education.
This question about taxing universities’ endowments seems to be tied to job training for no particular reason, as if the only way we can have job training is to tax endowments, and that the only reason we don’t have job training (or whatever) is because we haven’t taxed endowments. That’s not the case.
People try to sell us on things with promises about the good some other, completely unrelated program will do. Gambling=more funds for schools, Endowment taxes=job training. It’s a dishonest way to get people to support a bill. I can’t believe that job training can only be paid for with money taken from higher education endowments. I can’t see that these two things have any link at all. Or to put it another way, just because someone doesn’t want to tax endowments doesn’t mean they don’t want funding for job training.
Unfortunately I think that Cotton is one of the “smart” ones. He’s a fucking nut, but he’s also very dangerous.
another example of republicans wanting to use government to punish people they disagree with.
You can also look at Harvard’s endowment the year Tom Cotton got his JD from there in 2002. It was $17.5B (that’s post dot-com bubble). As of 2019 it’s $40.9B. Enrollment only grew from 19.5k to 22.2k.
Those kinds of numbers are pretty consistent if you check other institutions and I never hear about any corresponding expansion in education (maybe I’m out of the loop). Cotton’s proposal and rationale were terrible and in bad faith.
Agreed. There has been a lot of bait-and-switch legislation as a result. You mention state lotteries and that’s the one that jumps to my mind, too. Gradually, as lottery funding in my state has been earmarked for 1. Education, then that was diluted to 2. Education and State Parks, then to 3. Education, state parks, and salmon recovery, meanwhile general fund allocation to those areas was decreased proportionally. The result is that the trade-off of introducing state-sponsored gambling with increased school funding was never realized. It’s even decreased funding some years when the lottery spending decreased.
I personally think that if something is worth funding, it’s worth funding from the general fund. No user fees, tolls, lottery, etc. Just collect taxes and fund programs.
