THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 9, 1995 TAG: 9508090009
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Staff writer Phil Walzer's well-written article reporting the attack of the budgeteers on college and graduate-school subsidized-loan programs is the last straw (``Cost of grad school loans could increase,'' news, July 21).
One politician claimed that the education of future millionaires is being provided by the sweat of high-school graduates. The logic (or lack thereof) of this statement implies several things. (1) That high-school graduates who did not proceed to college provide the largest percentage of their income in taxes, thereby resulting in an inequity. (2) That we should all cease our education at high school rather than risk becoming state-subsidized professional students. (3) That most graduate students become millionaires. (4) That millionaires and high-school graduates exist in two separate and wholly unrelated economies. (5) That government investment in higher education is a comparatively poor investment.
All suppositions are incorrect. The average high-school graduate pays a disproportionately lower percentage of personal income in taxes than the average graduate student. Millionaires, on a per-capita basis, are paying the bill for the majority of this and all social programs.
``The rich must pay their fair share,'' says Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. In reality, our graduated income-tax system forces the rich to pay more than their fair share.
Equally disturbing is the pitting of economic classes against one another. Our economy is a symbiotic one; it depends on spending inequities to function. The value added to society from investment in graduate education in the form of teachers, social workers and scientists is substantial. I would guess that most Americans would agree that $10,000 spent on a doctoral student in biochemistry doing his thesis on cancer is better than a couple of toilet seats and screwdrivers for the Department of Defense.
Where have we come to in this country when achievement is penalized through nonequivalent taxation (a deprivation of liberty and freedom) and derogatory rhetoric, and idleness and depravity are rewarded through lavish welfare subsidies, removing all incentive for our children to aspire to greatness?
We can hope only that the golden age of information technology will obviate the need for our congressional representatives, and their dramatic and self-serving polemics, by giving all Americans a direct line to the legislative process.
DAVID DAYTON MAQUERA
Virginia Beach, July 21, 1995 by CNB