Posted on 07/29/2011 2:41:48 AM PDT by markomalley
House conservatives who have stalled legislation to raise the national debt limit are angry that it includes $17 billion in supplemental spending for Pell Grants, which some compare to welfare.
Legislation crafted by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to raise the debt limit by $900 billion would directly appropriate $9 billion for Pell Grants in 2012 and another $8 billion in 2013.
This has shocked some conservative House freshmen who say they were elected to cut spending, not increase it. Some House Republicans think of it as being akin to welfare.
“I really don’t understand why we’re increasing spending in a bill supposed to be cutting spending,” said Rep. Andy Harris, a freshman Republican from Maryland. “It was negotiated without the input of a lot of members.”
Harris has indicated to The Baltimore Sun that he will vote no.
House Republican leaders say they included concessions to Democrats in efforts to forge a compromise that could pass both chambers.
“This is a compromise piece of legislation that was negotiated between the Speaker and the bipartisan leadership in the Senate,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters Thursday afternoon.
One major concession is the establishment of a select joint committee to assemble another deficit-reduction package later in the 112th Congress.
“The joint select committee is something that came from the Democrats. We don’t have all the cuts we like in this bill but we’re willing to compromise,” Cantor said.
The inclusion of the extra money for Pell Grants could cost Republican votes.
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) has compared Pell Grants to “welfare”.
"So you can go to college on Pell Grants — maybe I should not be telling anybody this because it’s turning out to be the welfare of the 21st century," Rehberg told Blog Talk Radio in April. "You can go to school, collect your Pell Grants, get food stamps, low-income energy assistance, Section 8 housing, and all of a sudden we find ourselves subsidizing people that don’t have to graduate from college.”
Rehberg has not said how he will vote on Boehner’s bill.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who has not revealed his position, said the Pell Grants have “been part of the discussion” among conservatives who are debating whether to support the bill.
House GOP leaders postponed a vote on the plan Thursday evening because of opposition within their conference.
Funding Pell Grants has been a top priority for President Obama. In his 2012 budget blueprint, the president sought to preserve the maximum grant at nearly $5,550 a year.
CC&B OR BUST!!!
nothing else or else
-the Tea Party
Why the hell are we INCREASING spending on something as WASTEFUL as Pell Grants.
We have more than enough students in colleges today as it is. If anything, we should simply ELIMINATE the program. That is what the Tea Party was sent to DC to do.
Sounds to me like both the Boehner plan and Reid’s bill are Democrat legislation.
TITLE V—PELL GRANT AND STUDENT LOAN PROGRAM CHANGES
Sec. 501. Federal Pell Grants.
This section provides $17 billion in mandatory funds over two years to help fill the funding gap in the Federal Pell Grant program.
The select joint committee came from the Democrats (though reportedly they may now negotiate it away from themselves) and still people aren’t suspect that it may end up as a tax-raising mechanism rather than a tax-cutting one?
This confirms Mark Levin's theory that Boehner has secretly been negotiating with Harry Reid.
Also, it is important to note that in the original Boehner bill, Pell Grant funding was only increased by $3 billion. The in the amendment that came out yesterday, that had risen to $17 billion. All this in a bill that purports to cut spending, but doesn’t cut a single penny of spending in 2011. Amazing.
I think the old timers in Congress find themselves in the unenviable position of having no chair when the music stopped. We all knew this day was coming, and so did they. They just thought they could keep the Empire rolling long enough for them to live high off the hog like their predecessors, then hit the ejection button and leave somebody else with the mess. The smart ones got out before the bell tolled.
America's Ruling Class --And the Perils of Revolution By Angelo M. Codevilla
We all know how Pell Grants are distributed - - particularly since the Obozo Admn. is now administering the “student loan” program as provided for in Obama Care.
“We all know how Pell Grants are distributed - - particularly since the Obozo Admn. is now administering the “student loan” program as provided for in Obama Care.”
I’m not interested...I just want this crap ended. We can cut, probably, $200B just from programs like this, before even having to hit defense and entitlements. Why the hell are they STILL essentially off the table?
“We all know how Pell Grants are distributed”
30 years ago they were distributed to a young hillbilly that worked his way through an Ohio state school. I worked 60 hours/week to pay for my rent and food in a slum near the college because I couldn’t afford a car. The grants from the feds and the state paid my tuition ($350/quarter back then!). If it weren’t for the grants I wouldn’t be making 6 figures today and paying it back 100 times over with my income taxes.
I would like the grants to go away ONLY if the states start controlling the cost of state schools. Enough fancy construction etc.! The state schools should never be more expensive than what someone working full time at minimum wage can afford. A hard working intelligent person should always be able to WORK his way out of the inner city and the outer hills.
Pell Grants are necessary until the states get their educational act in gear. /rant
When someone goes to college on their own dime, or has to work for the money to pay their way, they not only tend to work harder at their studies, but try to get the most for their money.
But that's fertile soil for conservatism to plant its seed.
That surely isn't what the Administration, nor the Democrats, nor most of the Socialists in Higher Education want, they're after a steady flow of overeducated 'studies' majors who understand little but can recite the party line chapter and worse.
All Pell grants have done is give the academic administrators more reason to raise the total cost of education. Their contention is the students are getting this money for free so they continually raise salaries, raise room and board, tuition across the board. Hyper inflation in academia is partly due to Pell as well as the lucrative “research” grants, etc.
They are a bunch of liars!
KILL THE BILL!
Back in the mid-80’s when my kids were at Penn State they were elligible for Pell Grants, but the grants were not funded. They managed mostly on their own. They lived at home the first two years and commuted to a Penn State satellite campus and then spent the last two years at the main campus. We helped as much as we could and they both worked summers and wound up with student loans that were the equivalent of an inexpensive car when they were finished. The loans were quickly paid off.
Both majored in the sciences. One is now a Ph. D and the other PLS and PE.
In my very first year--and back when I was just learning my way around the university's finance system--I received a Pell Grant for about $1500. At the time, this was about 25% of a year's tuition. The rest of my tuition and expenses came from my limited savings, my income from a part-time job, and student loans.
In my second year, which would've been around 1992 or so, I received no Pell Grants. The same happened in my third and fourth years. My education after the first year was entirely self-financed. But I took my college education seriously, and my degree allowed me to pick and choose which job offer was best for me. I finished college with about $13K in student loans, which I then paid off in about 18 months. I'm sure that I've long since paid off that generous grant, as well.
My point is, there ARE alternative ways of funding college educations. I suspect there may be some students or even families that are in worse financial straits than I was, but even if they receive some Pell Grants, it's not going to make or break someone's college plans. Pell Grants then represented only a small fraction of financial aid awarded, and no one saw those grants as a full-ride through four years of college.
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