Small government GOP wants to tell the moochers what they can and cannot eat

[jhmd2000]

No, I didn't have a 3 year scholarship because it limited my options (it was a NROTC scholarship and they didn't have NROTC at Wake... I would've had to have gone to...ugh...the University of Texas). Thus my parents paid for everything.

They didn't pay 60k because it didn't cost 60k back then. It cost about 20k/year, which was still a hefty sum.

Your remark was directed at all Wake alumni except yourself, apparently. Or at least anybody who went to Wake when tuition was ridiculous (sometime after you did) and had their mommy and daddy pay for it.[/QUOTE]

Now we're getting somewhere.

ETA: For the 4 years I was there, total cost for everything averaged about $2,300/year and fewer than 10% of the students had a car. We used to hit pitching wedges on that big grassy field that is now a huge parking lot behind Wait Chapel, and on the grassy field behind Davis Dorm. (I was not part of that <10%....thumbing back & forth to Randleman if I went home on a weekend. My dad was a blue-collar machinist for Western Electric in Greensboro who never made more than $10,000/year in his life...and my mom was still able to be a stay-at-home mom, though she did make a little money baking cakes & making mints for birthdays, receptions, etc. I was the first person in my family to go to college. I probably had less than $15 in my pocket at any given time....but, somehow, everyone still seemed to have a great time. And in spite of all those financial limitations, I was still able to graduate with zero college debt. Things have certainly gone to hell since then.)

Whose generation is the one setting the tuition? It is abundantly clear that you think tuition is too high, but why you keep blaming the victim (today's generation) instead of the perp (your generation, that decided this tuition was a good idea and started charging it everywhere) is a fountain of amusement.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

You should be concerned about both. The credits or deductions are generally the result of lobbyist-driven government interference in the economy. They distort the free market, stifle competition, reduce social mobility, create unintended consequences, and give unearned advantages to rent-seeking industries and companies over their competitors who aren't as successful in greasing politicians. The fact that you aren't concerned is pretty much the dividing line between a libertarian and a Republican.

In a theoretical vacuum world, sure. In the actual world with everything that is fucked up about our government structure, no, what people/companies do with tax credits is not something that approaches the top of the list for me to be concerned over.

 

[WFFaithful]

In a theoretical vacuum world, sure. In the actual world with everything that is fucked up about our government structure, no, what people/companies do with tax credits is not something that approaches the top of the list for me to be concerned over.

Are you concerned with the quantity or pervasiveness of these credits or how they were obtained?

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Not much. The entire tax code and accompanying regulations are thousands of pages of preferences and trade-offs. I've said multiple times that the entire code needs to be scrapped for a simpler method (preferably not an income tax). But if this is the system we have, then this is what we get.

 

[PhDeac]

What simpler system do you have in mind?

 

[MBStretch]

What does SNAP stand for?

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - formerly Food stamps

 

[Deacon923]

In a theoretical vacuum world, sure. In the actual world with everything that is fucked up about our government structure, no, what people/companies do with tax credits is not something that approaches the top of the list for me to be concerned over.

Oh, don't get me wrong - the last thing I want is more government meddling by telling people what they can and can't do with their subsidies and tax credits. My point is that massive (I mean, really massive) over-complexity, redundancy, and waste in our poverty reduction programs is a problem that will NOT be solved by tightening up rules on what poor people do with their money (and hiring more bureaucrats, writing more regs, buying more computers, and building more buildings to enforce those rules). Rather, we should go the opposite direction by eliminating barriers to aid and the expensive bureaucracy that goes with it.

 

[ChrisL68]

bkf getting indignant because somebody is judging him. Doesn't get much more ironic than that.