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Jesse Jackson had an op-ed in yesterday's USA Today (20 February, page 9A). His idea is that since banks now borrow money at 1%, allow college loans at 1%. He points out that while most people used to go to college on 2/3 grant money and 1/3 loans, that has now been reversed. He wrote: There is real perversity here Thanks to government aid, General Motors is offering car loans at 0% while students seeking to get an education pay at least 5%. students are essentially subsidizing the banks that drove us into this ditch.
He couldn't be more right. Above his op-ed is Al Neuthart's piece. (He founded the paper.) He wrote: Work programs mentioned so far mostly are in man-oriented construction and engineering. We must also offer opportunities in areas like education and health care, which not only attract more women, it's where they have more opportunities to rise in the ranks. Most important, President Obama must guard against the stimulus plan's implementation becoming sexist, as was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression on the 1930's. Then, I was a kid living in the little prairie town of Alpena, S.D. These signs were posted at the WPA swimming pool and park project next to the public school: Men $5 a day
Women $3 a day Because sexist white males were in charge, the didn't hire any women, even at the lower rate. So my widowed mother, Christina, worked for $1 a day washing dishes at the local U&I Cafe. Walking to and from school seeing those government signs every day made me vow that if I ever got to do any hiring, it would be discrimination-free. That's a pledge I ketp while supervising employment of tens of thousands over a 35-year period.
Education for all, opportunity for all. What a concept.
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