So now Kamala Harris, the wannabe president, has proposed what she refers to as an "investment" of $60 billion of your taxes and mine, to go to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Now, HBCUs are a recognized category of institution. They have a favored status in pursuing Federal contracts; that is, there are Federal contracts that require that a percentage be subcontracted to HBCUs for areas like research and development, that sort of thing. So they already do have a favored status, in that they are cited in the Federal code.
There is no "sunsetting" to that recognition, of course. The left, who is entrenched in our government, does not allow any program to end easily, lest the citizenry realize it doesn't actually need more government. So long past the point where any private institution based on racial preference should even exist, let alone be subsidized, HBCUs will be treated favorably by your government and mine.
But at bottom, they are colleges. Private colleges are indeed private; they are either for-profit entities (owned) or not-for-profit. But either way, they are responsible to manage their affairs in a fiscally responsible manner. And colleges don't always do that too well. Just ask Bernie Sanders, or at least Mrs. Bernie, about that.
Kamala Harris wants to toss $60 billion over to them to do ... well, it doesn't matter, except suffice it to say that the initial proposal was to fund science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) scholarships and activities as about 80% of that, er, "investment."
Now, $60 billion is a lot of money. From an order of magnitude perspective, it is pretty much like taking Bill Gates's entire bank account and seizing it to give to these schools ... oh, excuse me, "invest" in them. I mention that metaphor because it is important to see that kind of spending for what it is, i.e., taking from one group to give to another, all to try to buy votes in a primary.
Politicians, our current president to the distinct contrary, typically have no sense whatever of the value of a dollar. So pandering pols like Kamala Harris can be expected not to understand the meaning of the word "investment."
We who work for a living understand that an investment is money that you use to fund some company or operation with the explicit intent that over time you will receive back more than you put in. That is called your "return on investment" or "ROI", and I'm not sure why I'm even telling you that. If you read this site, you already know more than Kamala Harris does about the value of a dollar.
There is no ROI to be expected here. The proposal will never go through, since (A) Kamala Harris is not going to be president, and (B) even if it went to Congress, it would turn into some legislative mush that would not resemble the original intent, and would get sent to committee to die. But even if it somehow did, there is no ROI because there is no place for an ROI to materialize, not $60 billion and not 46 cents.
The same students who would be going to HBCUs to pursue STEM careers are going to go, whether they borrow the money or get it from a scholarship fund like that. There is no route to an ROI, friends.
So what is Kamala Harris talking about? Well, duh, she is simply not getting the black vote in the polling for the Democrat primaries, and figures that she'll just follow the leftist playbook and promise lots of money that she doesn't have. Her assumption, I assume, is that the Democrat primary voters are so stupid that they think that money in Washington is unlimited, that they don't understand economics any better than she does, and that they don't recognize a blatant pandering appeal when they see one. Her anemic polling probably answers that one.
My real objection is simply that there is no explanation of what the problem is that requires seizing $60 billion from the American worker, or borrowing it from China. What, we need to ask, is the specific problem?
Perhaps peeing $60 billion of seized or borrowed money into the wind is not the best way to solve it. Maybe the nation doesn't agree that what she thinks is a problem even is one, or that it should be solved at the Federal level, or that government should be the one to fix it.
But that is the thought process I had when I read the article. I don't trust Harvard or M.I.T. to manage their finances well enough to give them money taken from the American taxpayer, except for very specific research projects that are overseen and have accountability built in. Why would I trust any college or university to do so when we don't even articulate the problem that is supposed to be solved?
And that's before we ask, as I've written before, how we will measure whether the program is successful (which you have to define before you ask for a dime) or when the program is terminated, having achieved its goals.
Kamala Harris has some 'splaining to do. But we have time.
Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
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