Thursday, February 26, 2009
President Obama takes a shot at academia
Regular commenter "Link" notices that Barack Obama has turned on one of the Democrats' most loyal constituencies:
Obama's plan to eliminate charitable deductions for those making over $250,000 will have a significant adverse impact on our elite colleges. These schools are facing financial pressures as endowments have lost billions and many current and prospective students can't afford $50,000 per year bills anymore. Right now these colleges need their alumni contributions. Once the colleges understand that Obama's proposal will cut alumni contributions in half ... or more, maybe the faculty will wake up to what Obama's about.
I certainly agree that President Obama has screwed universities, but I very much doubt this will put so much as a scratch in Barack Obama's support among academics; they will blame corrosive "greed" and argue that the "rich" should make charitable contributions and pay a tax on them. After all, the Vice President they voted for actually believes that it is patriotic to pay higher taxes. Oh, sure, a few professors might suffer a little cognitive dissonance, but they'll get over it when they realize that there is a lot more federal grant money to go around.
18 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Feb 26, 04:20:00 PM:
Obama's understanding of economics is laughable. Once someone tells him that these marxist schools will lose capitalist money, he will reverse course completely. Obama obviously can't even think through a 2+2 economics question. We are in big, big trouble.
By 
SeniorD, at
Thu Feb 26, 04:51:00 PM:
Let's see, many tenured academicians make salarys approaching $175,000. If said academicians are married to a professional spouse, their combined income rises to the ceiling limit.
Perhaps these Progressive Leftists are afraid of losing their money and lifestyle?
By Purple Avenger, at
Thu Feb 26, 04:52:00 PM:
When the union rank and file finally realize that a tanked market just devastated their retirement funds, and the Federal government sucking all the oxygen out of the credit markets makes the private sector swoon even longer, they aren't going to be too happy either.
Its just going to take a while for that to sink in.
By Viking Kaj, at
Thu Feb 26, 05:31:00 PM:
But Michele was not too proud to collect $ 320,000 for community out reach from the University of Chicago last year.
This was up from her starting salary of $ 120,000 in 2004 because her position was so "essential".
Then, when she quit, they didn't replace her.
What a lousy bunch of hypocrites. These people make me sick.
On the bright side some of those academic $ 1 million salaries like Emory's chancellor will be paying a little more to the Illinois State Paving fund via transfer payments.
By Daniel, at
Thu Feb 26, 06:15:00 PM:
I made this point on newsy.com (they took the "it'll help the uninsured get health care" argument), and I'll make it here. I doubt that the rich will fight back as strongly as you'd expect. Rather, they will find legal "loopholes" to exploit such as offshore banks and judicious asset declaration.
By , at
Thu Feb 26, 06:32:00 PM:
There's an offset, at least for the Ivy League - the student loan market will not freeze up on Obama's watch. In an environment where going to the 'right' school, and having the 'right' connections will be more important than ever, those schools will be able to double or triple their tuition rates, and the youngsters eager to be part of the action will gladly take the loans. And if said youngsters start defaulting down the road? Well, I'm sure there'll be a fix for that, also.
By , at
Thu Feb 26, 07:24:00 PM:
Greetings:
But, I'll bet all colleges and universities will quickly figure out how to their tuitions and fees to get President Obama's $2500 tax credits out of the hands of students and their families.
By Simon Kenton, at
Thu Feb 26, 07:43:00 PM:
At a party I was chatting with the director of planned giving at the University of Colorado a couple years ago when the Ward Churchill controversy was peaking. I'm not sure that what I'm doing to the faculty is 'justice,' but to do them justice, I don't think they had any idea or any particular feelings about the financial effects of the matter. They should continue to receive their salaries. The money should appear as the money always had. But the director of planned giving was shitting bricks. Gifting was down to half what it had been, and contributor after contributor told her, "Not while he's there." The director of the alumni association told me he was hearing the same thing.
You get jealous about your discretionary income. One of the few areas of control left to us. I think this is something which is largely forgotten, not just by college administrators, but by newspaper publishers.
By , at
Thu Feb 26, 08:58:00 PM:
To summarize: Volunteer giving bad- tax, borrow and spend good.
By Kurt, at
Thu Feb 26, 11:10:00 PM:
Simon, my mother was one of those University of Colorado alums who told the school no with regard to the Ward Churchill matter. But even now that he's no longer there, I doubt she even considers giving there anymore.
By , at
Fri Feb 27, 12:34:00 AM:
This was up from her starting salary of $ 120,000 in 2004 because her position was so "essential".
Then, when she quit, they didn't replace her.
That wasn't done because she was essential, it was a payoff for the federal money Barack sent their way.
By , at
Fri Feb 27, 12:46:00 AM:
Barack Obama americas elected dictator he is by far the worse presidents in americas history no matter what a bunch of stupid liberal gush heads say about him he is a tyrant, ADOLPH HITLER LIVES
By , at
Fri Feb 27, 04:55:00 AM:
We will all be "contributing" to ACORN. Also sprach Barack.
By davod, at
Fri Feb 27, 08:32:00 AM:
Speaking of ACORN - Obama's faith Based Initiative has been expanded to include secular groups. As I recall Bush's initiative was partially designed to offset the fact that secular groups could obtain funding then religious groups were denied.
From the Guardian:
"Obama seemed to take pains to distinguish his effort from Bush's, noting that secular groups would also be covered under the office. "The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another — or even religious groups over secular groups.... It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state."
What does the bold statement mean?
By , at
Fri Feb 27, 11:01:00 AM:
Cutting charitable giving by individuals -- by eliminating tax deductions -- is just one small example of the increasing power Obama wants ... have the federal government hog all the money ... and politicize how it's doled out.
To do this, Obama-Axelrod are first opening the door to new approaches to taxation. Ballooning future deficits will then be the rationale to move the brackets and raise the rates. Thus, expect to see $100,000 become the new $250,000, and the phase-out of charitable and mortgage deductions to be expanded.
I'd have some respect for Obama if he were a true Robin Hood, instead of a hustling "playa." He took a Rezko bribe to buy a mansion, took a pay-off through Michelle's salary ... I'd bet there was more. You'd think that after funnelling millions of state money to Rezko for his failed slums, Obama would have shame ... or at least have learned a lesson about the limited effectiveness of government spending. Instead ... he wants to piss away hundreds of billions.
We need to bring back George Orwell to write "Animal Farm 2 ... The Tax Code Years."
Link
By , at
Sat Feb 28, 01:48:00 PM:
This isn't just going to hurt elite universities, folks. It's going to hurt all of them and a bunch of students, too. Where do you think the bulk of scholarship money comes from? I've been involved in university fund raising. The bulk of the money goes to scholarships, and the bulk of the donations come from from rich people, however you want to define "rich". This is also going to hurt other charitable giving. The US leads the world by orders of magnitude in charitable giving. This is going to kill that. Socialists (e.g., Brits and other Europeans) don't go much for charitable giving. I wonder why? My colleagues there are extremely jealous of the fact that our citizenry will step in to help universities when the government falls short.
Incidentally, scary, isn't it that George Orwell was absolutely right, just off by 25 years.
By , at
Mon Mar 02, 08:08:00 PM:
I am not a seasoned blogger but simply decided to 'google' the elimination of the charitable deductions in prep to blast an e-mail to encourage a grass-roots resistence. You bloggers (yes you too anonymous and do not be ashamed because there is no shame in truth!) are absolutely on the money, and the problem is that by the time these policies get into the lifeblood and complete the poisoning, the impact upon the family unit, the market, universities, charities, churches and institutions will be so extensive that a roll-back will be extremely difficult. You can rationalize or write some policy and position stuff off to ideology and 'for the people' as naive or due to inexperience. This guy is evil.... he is NOT Robin Hood, more the Somalian pirates, whose sole focus is targeting those who have and stealing it for the power to reward and punish according to their ideology. It's reparation time, payback for unrequitted anger. Whoever said 'dangerous' that is an understatement. Terrorists without bombs. Smooth talkers without love. How can Michelle collect that kind of salary and still hold America in contempt? I have been blessed but never made a quarter of what she earned to do nothing. Oh woe to us who have been blind. The wrath is upon us. Only solution is prayer my friends. Susan
By , at
Sat Jan 30, 05:39:00 PM:
This blog is laughable. It would lead you to believe that the affluent are chariable and would be more charitable. If it weren't for taxes, rich people would be giving their money to charity. There's a few thousand years of human experience that suggests the opposite. Rich people only help the poor if
a. the poor help them stay rich. Rich people benefit from medical professionals lawyers and engineers the most.
b. It makes them look good.Most wealthy people aren't as giving as Bill Gates.
c. Furthers some kind of ideology or personal cause.
For example food or money for education is given to poor people if there is a common ethnicity or religion.
If those conditions aren't met, poor people are worthless to rich people. Up until modern times, it was poor people who paid stiff taxes to a governing body made up of all wealthy individuals. They consumed ninety percent the little abundance society was able to produce.The church and the ruling governing body were often on the same page when it came to to keeping the poor down and in control. Charitable giving was often like throwing crumbs to poor people since so much social policy was designed to distribute food, clothing, shelter, and education to the rich first.
