Education is the Enemy

GOP populism takes aim at a new enemy: higher education.

American conservatism is no longer the defender of traditional institutions.  Those are now the enemy.

GOP audiences in the 2016 campaign responded with cheers to attack on a suite of enemies.  Many were the "usual suspects."  Bureaucrats.  Criminals.  Muslim terrorists.  Gun haters. Abortions. Taxes. Democrats.  Obama.  Hillary.

Then there was a new enemy, expressing the voice of GOP populism:  experts and the institutions that exemplify the established order.  The mainline churches were suspect, the news media was fake, scientific and policy experts were wrong, the foreign policy and diplomatic establishment was stupid, the non-partisan CBO was untrustworthy, the FBI and CIA were corrupt, Congressional leaders were sold out, and university-trained experts were liberal stooges.

Click: Inside Higher Education

Democrats think that statistics like "98% of scientists say human-caused climate change is real" is a persuasive argument.   

It is not.

GOP audiences don't accept the premise that scientists are credible.  Scientists are discredited experts and part of the problem.  

A majority of Republicans now think that education hurts America, according to a Pew research poll, with 43% thinking education is a net positive and 45% that it is a net negative.

Since experts are the enemy, so are universities.

The tax bill has three provisions that put this opinion into pending law.  

One is that graduate students will have their waived tuition be taxed as income.   Graduate students are archetypal examples of people in poverty in an effort of self improvement.  They typically are emancipated from their parents.  They live on cheap food in single rooms in apartments shared with multiple roommates.  The House version of the tax bill would construe the tuition waiver of $30,000 to $50,000 a year as if it were income.  Their actual spendable income might be $12,000 in return for being a part time Teaching Assistant.  Adding the waived tuition would increase their taxable income from the $12,000 to $40,000 to $60,000, making a tax bill of perhaps $10,000--essentially their entire income.  They are taxing the politically weakest and most needy.

Second, it makes student loan interest no longer a tax deductible interest expense.  It adds to the burden that has become typical of students and graduates: education debt. Homeowner debt and business debt are deductible, student debt would not be.  Again, taxing the weakest and most needy segment of America

Third, it taxes the institutions by putting a 1.4% per year excise tax on the endowment income of some 60 of America's largest research institutions.  The purpose of the endowments is to fund the educational mission.

This is too targeted to be an "accident."  The amounts of money to be raised are too small to be a genuine search for revenue. The three taxes make a statement: Trump and the GOP controlled congress know who is on their team and who is an enemy of their team.

Education isn't the future of American strength.  Education is the enemy.