Your Jan. 26 editorial against free community college, “In Our View: Idea a Noble Failure,” was in good company when it quoted the Wall Street Journal. Forbes said the same thing with even more obfuscation. “We can’t afford it,” they say. Absolute bull feces.
Bloomberg Business Week calculates a cost of $60 billion over ten years — an interesting coincidence. As of 2011, the Commission on Wartime Contracting found $60 billion wasted in misguided, mismanaged contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress vowed immediate action, but the meter still spins at a blur. This is aside from hundreds of other forms of waste, fraud and direct theft. Consider the disappearance of $6.6 billion in neatly bundled $100 bills in Iraq, the millions or billions in arms and equipment abandoned to Islamic State, or the $500 million in Afghan aircraft scrapped for $32,000, to name just a few.
However, this cynic can see corporate America’s point. It’s harder to justify importing educated, cheaper labor on work visas if we provide needed skills and educations here. Also, better-educated citizens are less likely to elect corporate shills, believe agenda-driven media, fund senseless wars, or be willing victims to predatory capitalism. It’s about priorities.
Phillip A. Massey
Kalama
