I don't like our current president for many reasons. That's no secret. He's done many things wrong with our environment, our economy, our troops, our trust. But he isn't all bad.
Yet even when he occasionally tries to do something right, all his other actions makes it an uphill battle.
For example, rumor is that he is looking at further increasing Pell grant maximums. This is a great thing.
Sadly, the grant system is $4 billion dollars in the hole already. And our nation is over $7.5 trillion in debt. Republicans love to fall back on the fact that the economy was falling apart before Bush took office, or point to September 11.
But such excuses kind of get old after four years of massively increasing debt and deficits, of deep cuts to vital programs and taxes, yet increased spending. Our current problems were not inevitable.
In addition, Bush has already placed heavy demands on schools without providing the funding to back it up. He'll have pressure to find that money now. And his "tax breaks" were really just a shell game that shifted the burden of supporting social, education, and infrastructure programs further onto the states and thus back onto the taxpayers, while saving the wealthy a lot of money in federal taxes on their capital gains and other income.
So now Bush must try to find money that he's already burned to pay for promises he's ignored for far too long. Even if he did want to actually be compassionate now, he's been fiscally un-conservative for too long to do so easily.
Conspiracy theorists might also point to the fact that the financial industry loves Bush, supports Bush, and Bush loves them right back. And who profits when students don't get grants, or get inadequate grants? Who do students have to go to for loans or credit with all that juicy interest?
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