Meta-letter
(In response to the Nov. 15 letter to the editor “Mission impossible.”)
About once a week, I read an editorial or a letter to the editor in The State Press about the impending doom that awaits college students due to past and future cuts to education spending.
Unfortunately, many of these articles are riddled with blatantly false information or they fail to put a particular piece of data in context. Monday's letter to the editor was no exception.
The writer said "Because of the massive federal cuts in state aid, states have had to cut state services."
This is incorrect. Under the Obama administration and the Democratic congress, multiple stimulus and bailout programs have massively increased the amount of money given to the states to support education, law enforcement and infrastructure construction. This is in addition to increases in state aid (including for education) in the regular discretionary federal budget outside of the stimuli, which occurred under both President Barack Obama and President George Bush, including when the Republicans controlled Congress. State services have had to be cut because this state and others suffered a serious decline in revenues due to the impact of the economic recession. Also, most states have limits on how much debt they can take on and about how long they can run a deficit (unlike the federal government). It would not have taken more than five minutes on Google to confirm these facts, but then again, it would have taken some of the drama out of Mr. Jaehnert's letter.
Daniel Caldwell
Reader
