Quote Originally Posted by VictorCharlie View Post
Kirk,

You just quoted and linked the same article I did earlier. You are focusing on the 2.3 billion that went directly to the institute and acting like the other 30 billion mentioned doesn't also go right to the univeristy from the student. Of course it is a subsidy. Any time the government is paying for a portion of the demand side it skews the actual price for the supply. I'm paying off 40k of my wife's student loans that more than half were federally backed. This is a subsidy no different than tax breaks for employer provided insurance or mortage interest. As long as we keep providing student loans the Universities will keep raising the price of tuition well in excess of inflation which then makes it even harder to pay for school w/o a loan and so and so on.

I feel like you are making my point for me on Paul. The GOP is for the most part a bunch of ass clowns that are not truthfully fiscally conservative and but tend to be socially reprehensible. So the fact that they went with a candidate that they did over the two and maybe 3rd in Huntsman that have genuine principles and ideas really supports the fact that if Paul or Johnson had been the nominee they would run roughshod over the President. The GOP is just stupid so I don't know why it surprising that they failed to recognize the best chance of defeating the President. The GOP is going to turn out to vote against the Dem's Messiah no matter what buffoon shows up but Romney and his ilk don't pull well outside of the base. A Paul or Johnson nomination would have challenged the President with truth, honesty and real substantive plans in all arenas of public policy. The GOP no longer has a real record of limited government and fiscal responsibility but Johnson and Paul do. Combine that with the fact that Johnson and Paul are even more socially liberal than the President and it really isn't close.
If the government didn't give grants so that smart poor kids got to go to college it'd just open up places for thick rich kids to get in. If there was an oversupply of places then the worst academic places would cut the number of places they offer. The price of tuition etc nationally would remain exactly the same. All the main colleges have a massive oversubscription every year -- they get to pick and choose who they want. That isn't going to change if the government cut all funding, they're still going to be oversubscribed. If you go to countries where the state pays for everybodys' college education you find that the cost is a fraction of US costs. Why is that? Government funding of education is one of the best things it does and it doesn't do nearly enough of it. If I hadn't got government funding for my education I'd be a builder and my kids would have gone to the local state school with the expectation of being builders when they grew up.

Look mate, Ron Paul and the other fruit loop are so extreme that even GOP primary voters the most conservative group of voters you can find in America, completely reject them. Anybody campaigning on a platform of ending social security and medicare is going to lose 48 states. That's just a fact. I know it's difficult for you to accept that you're in a tiny minority but you are.