Dan, earlier I expressed myself re this topic and was curtly told that
political commentary was not welcome here. I said that I did not start the
thread. Now we get a new barrage of this sort of discussion,
My question was meant to ask if the political commentary of others is
welcome, how can I -- with contrary views -- be expected to remain silent.
Dan, I now take it that you have set some sort of amorphous rule re
political commentary
I restate my position:
Rarely has the federal government done anything really good -- yes they
hand out money and people like this very much and just as rarely eschew it,
but it has been shown --at least in my opinion -- over and over again that
the fed gov is not a very good administrator of money.
Miraculously the Eisenhower (block) Grants turned out to be relatively
"good" -- because they are administered by the states!!!
Now the congress wants to INCREASE these grants by bundling them with
INCREASED block grants to the states. The current congress wisely feels
that if the DEd gets involved in the administration of these grants, they
will mess up a relatively "good" thing.
It is unbelievable to me that anyone on this list would oppose this --
except that they are confused by the fog promulgated by the bill's
opposition, who want more power to be placed in the hands of Washington --
They want this for the same reason all government bulges: the incompetent
Washington boobs would be without a job.
Although I do not agree with the bulk of Bush's arguments, he is certainly
correct that if the _people's_ money is left anywhere near Washington, it
will be spent on something.
On the other hand if the education money can be locked up in block grants,
it will finally reach the students.
Now some ask why one would think that state politicians are more competent
than federal politicians. They may not be -- but at least their income is
not solely from political efforts and that they pay attention to local vote
more assiduously than a Washington politician does. Is it not clear that
the closer to the public the political decisions are the better they will
be? -- ie better for the local people -- at least to a reasonable
approximation??
On the other hand look at prime time TV. Maybe the public should not be
making any of the decisions.