Lost in the furor over the budget is any discussion of the fact that, after a certain baseline point, redistributive payouts might be making things worse for those on the receiving end.
Black middle-class flight from northern big cities, failing public schools like nearby Fresno City College, where yesterday it was announced that 70 percent of students (the majority of them on some sort of federal and state loan support) fail to receive a two-year AA degree — these are just a few indications that increasing reliance on government subsidies does not eliminate, and may well perpetuate, such ills as illiteracy, poverty, and hunger.
Here in California, the CSU system — the largest university system in the world — cannot explain why 46 percent of entering freshmen in 2001 needed remediation in math and English, still less why that number has soared to nearly 60 percent after a decade of record spending on campus budgets. Only about half of students graduate within six years, even fewer within five.
Continue reading Victor Davis Hanson at National Review Online’s The Corner…
