Upbeat and Downstairs: Home of Daryl C. Donatelli

“Reforming” The Student Loan Program

President Bush Speaking at Kansas State During a question-and-answer session on January 23 with students and community members at Kansas State University, sophomore Tiffany Cooper asked:

Tiffany Cooper: Hi, I just want to get your comments about education. Recently, $12.7 billion was cut from education, and I was just wondering how that’s supposed to help our futures?

President Bush: Education budget was cut — say it again. What was cut?

Tiffany Cooper: Twelve point seven billion dollars was cut from education, and I was just wondering how is that supposed to help our…

Bush: At the federal level?

Tiffany Cooper: Yes.

Bush: I don’t think that — I don’t think we’ve actually — for higher education? Student loans?

Tiffany Cooper: Yes, student loans.

(Full transcript: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060123-4.html)

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Last month, the Senate passed a budget-cutting bill that takes a net of $12.7 billion out of the federal student aid programs in order to help finance the recent round of tax cut legislation. Seventy percent of the gross savings (which total approximately $21 billion) generated in the bill are achieved by continuing the practice of tacking on excessive interest rates on student loans and by increasing college loan costs for parent borrowers.

Two-thirds of all college graduates take out loans to help pay for their college. The average debt of graduates is nearly $20,000. The student loan cuts just passed by Congress, according to experts cited by the Wall Street Journal, will raise the average cost over 10 years
by $2,000 to students and $3,000 to parents.

As my student loans won’t be paid off until what feels like 2050, I am terribly upset and frustrated by this round of legislation. Aren’t you?

A Politically Correct Holiday Greeting

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only “America” in the western hemisphere) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message, however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced for a brief period.

Calvin and His Snowmen

I used to read Bill Watterson‘s Calvin and Hobbes comic strips all the time as a kid, and I don’t think the strips have ever lost their charm over the years. Here are a few snowmen comics that I thought were hysterical:

Calvin and Hobbes Comic