Say no more. Rep Foxx has been playing Professional Stupid for years. She eats Stupid Flakes for breakfast. People riding the short bus see her yard signs every two years, and shake their heads slowly. She is routinely outsmarted by cheese. Doorstops have more brainpower. She’s dumber than a football bat. She makes a spoon in a knife drawer look sharp.
The woman is dumb. D-U-M-B. Dumb.
Also, if Virginia want to claim her, they’re welcome to her.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make this argument. I’ve made a superficially similar one: if I succeeded, it’s proof that it was possible to succeed. “So can anyone…” has never been a part of what I’ve said.
Indeed, what I say is that personal talent and ability mean that some succeed where others fail. I did not succeed in becoming an NBA star, for example, but the reasons for that are obvious: I’m 5’10" and can’t reliably shoot the ball.
But I did succeed in academic settings… and not because of economic advantages.
So what’s the real underlying expectation here? Are we trying to say that this is wrong, that people should succeed despite any inherent skill limitations they have?
I would argue that the vast majority of people fall under one (or multiple) of these categories:
Going to a junior college. Cost are lower but so are job prospects upon graduation.
Getting parental assistance in some manner (room, food, etc)
Getting massive scholarships or Pell grants (the latter of which is rapidly shrinking thanks to Republicans)
Getting student loans
I added 4 in there because everyone does it. The number of people who attend a 5 year state-level or greater university with NO outside help, NO scholarships and NO student loans, who instead choose to forge it all alone is infintesimally small.
How, with no cites at my disposal, do I come to that conclusion?
Because if we postulate that tuition, room, food, supplies & clothes (remember, no help from anyone) for costs $25,000 average per year, then you’re saying that this hypothetical student makes $25,000 per year at a job, minimum. If you can manage school full time and pay out of pocket for expenses at $25,000 you are so improbably rare you may not need college after all to be able to fulfill your dreams.
No-one has dismissed the people who do it today. But, for a lot of people who do it today, the fact is that they often end up in large amounts of debt. And, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, those who attend “cheaper” state schools are more likely to end up in huge amounts of debt than those who attend elite, expensive institutions.
I teach in the California State University system. Here in California, increases in tuition at state schools (UC and CSU) have far outstripped increases in wages over the past 40 years, and especially over the past 20. A while ago, i gathered figures on tuition costs and the California minimum wage and put together this table, which shows annual tuition costs for the UC and CSU systems, and the number of 8-hour days you need to work at minimum wage in order to pay one year of tuition.
Remember that these figures are for education expenses only, They take no account of living costs, textbooks, etc.:
Year CA Min. Wage UC Days Work CSU Days Work
1965 $1.30 245 23.56 105 10.10
1966 $1.30 246 23.65 105 10.10
1967 $1.30 248 23.85 110 10.58
1968 $1.65 331 25.08 133 10.08
1969 $1.65 334 25.30 149 11.29
1970 $1.65 487 36.89 161 12.20
1971 $1.65 640 48.48 161 12.20
1972 $1.65 644 48.79 161 12.20
1973 $1.65 644 48.79 161 12.20
1974 $2.00 646 40.38 194 12.13
1975 $2.00 647 40.44 194 12.13
1976 $2.50 648 32.40 195 9.75
1977 $2.50 706 35.30 195 9.75
1978 $2.65 720 33.96 212 10.00
1979 $2.90 736 31.72 210 9.05
1980 $3.10 776 31.29 226 9.11
1981 $3.35 997 37.20 319 11.90
1982 $3.35 1,300 48.51 505 18.84
1983 $3.35 1,387 51.75 692 25.82
1984 $3.35 1,324 49.40 658 24.55
1985 $3.35 1,326 49.48 666 24.85
1986 $3.35 1,345 50.19 680 25.37
1987 $3.35 1,492 55.67 754 28.13
1988 $4.25 1,554 45.71 815 23.97
1989 $4.25 1,634 48.06 839 24.68
1990 $4.25 1,820 53.53 920 27.06
1991 $4.25 2,486 73.12 1,080 31.76
1992 $4.25 3,044 89.53 1,460 42.94
1993 $4.25 3,727 109.62 1,604 47.18
1994 $4.25 4,111 120.91 1,853 54.50
1995 $4.25 4,139 121.74 1,891 55.62
1996 $4.75 4,166 109.63 1,935 50.92
1997 $5.15 4,212 102.23 1,946 47.23
1998 $5.75 4,037 87.76 1,871 40.67
1999 $5.75 3,903 84.85 1,830 39.78
2000 $5.75 3,964 86.17 1,839 39.98
2001 $6.25 3,859 77.18 1,876 37.52
2002 $6.75 4,017 74.39 2,005 37.13
2003 $6.75 5,530 102.41 2,572 47.63
2004 $6.75 6,312 116.89 2,916 54.00
2005 $6.75 6,802 125.96 3,164 58.59
2006 $6.75 6,852 126.89 3,199 59.24
2007 $7.50 7,517 125.28 3,521 58.68
2008 $8.00 8,027 125.42 3,849 60.14
2009 $8.00 9,311 145.48 4,893 76.45
2010 $8.00 11,279 176.23 5,390 84.22
2011 $8.00 13,218 206.53 6,422 100.34
As you can see, as recently as 2002 it took fewer than 38 days at minimum wage to pay for a year at CSU; now it takes over 100 (that’s 20 five-day weeks), and that’s going to go up again this year. The UC system now requires 41 five-day weeks of work at minimum wage, just to pay tuition. Given that many students can only get minimum-wage of near-minimum-wage jobs, this is, i believe, a fairly reasonable indicator of the challenges that college students face.
Plenty of other states are in a similar position, with decreasing state support for public education leaving students to foot dramatically increasing bills. Leaving aside altogether the question of whether this shift in the model of education funding is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, for a legislator to come out in such an environment and say that she has “very little tolerance” for people who graduate with large debts, “because there’s no reason for that,” shows willful ignorance and stupidity, IMO.
I can’t see where anybody made a claim that it has been made (in so many words). Frankly, I think you were in a better position in your earlier post, where you impugned the validity of Euphonious Polemic’s summaries. At least then, you were disagreeing with them, and allowing for them to be characterized as summaries. With the above, and this:
you’re setting up a straw man, and then having a whack at it.
I’ll not claim to be speaking for anyone else here, but I’ll admit to an underlying expectation that it would be nice for “success” to be more broadly assessed, such that a decent standard of living can be earned by a single breadwinner/homeowner for his (or her) family of dependents without requiring an advanced degree, or even a bachelor’s.
And achievable. In addition to “nice,” I admit to an underlying expectation that it should be achievable.
Agreed.
And why is this bad?
What is the contrary proposal, or what is it that we need to fix?
True enough. It’s not a complete fabrication, because I have had similar conversations in other threads where the subjects have also been raised, but yes, I agree that here I offered up… er… an alternative specific formula to debate.
Or strawman. 
Well, what we need to fix is the rise in educational costs as it relates to inflation and the ratio between the cost of education vs. the benefits of that education in increased salary.
But we’re not debating educational fixes. For that, we should move it to GD.
What we’re debating is whether Representative Foxx understands and accepts reality (My vote is no.) Reality is that her experiences from 43 years ago cannot be applied to today’s students. Reality is that 99.9% of students today either a) get a lot of help or b) get a lot of debt. The pay-as-you-go approach is simply not feasible and it’s obscene for Foxx to discount all those students in part B as unworthy.
I thought we were debating whether God cheats at poker.
There are people - here and IRL, who certainly disparage folks who do not succeed, because they themselves managed success. They do not take into account differing circumstances that led to (or detract from) success.
I did not say that you do it. It is a fairly common failing seen among many however.
Likewise, it is quite common to hear folks (again, not you, so stop taking it personally), who talk about how getting ahead is so, so easy. And they don’t seem to know that finding a job today is not the same thing as finding a job 40 years ago.
Folks like this tend to be on the right of the political spectrum. They believe in rugged individualism, and scoff at people getting help from the state. These are things that I regularly hear from these folks:
“I made it, so why can’t he?” (Because unlike you, he was molested by his step father and grew up on the streets)
" Those guys should just get a job - I did". (Yes, back in the day when unemployment was at 4%, and organizations were begging people to apply)
“Go get an education. I managed to do it, and I was poor” (Right, but that was 40 years ago, when education was much more affordable)
They just have no concept that others may have different backgrounds, or that times are not the same as they once were. Representative Foxx is just such a person.
At what point does a dog whistle become a bullhorn?
I predict there will be a job opening for a fire captain in Dade County very shortly.
According to Bachmann, Democrats are trying to take away women’s healthcare choices, while Republicans are trying to free them. This from someone who wants to restrict reproductive choice and access to contraceptives. OK, this is way over into “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” territory.
Black is White. Accuse the opposition of being what you are. SOP for the GOP these days. Apparently this will be a lasting legacy from Carl Rove.
Whenever I see one of those stories about the variety of firm convictions held by Mitt Tirebiter, I flash back to the Republican convention that re-nominated Bush against Kerry, how they had all those “Purple Heart” bandaids. Which was weird enough, till I saw that a lot of them had one of a pair of zoris, which they would wave about and chant “flip-flop! flip-flop!” about Kerry.
Pure Essence of Turdblossom. The essential Karl Rove. I’m told he goes to church, I wonder if he thinks he’s going to Heaven.
Tirebiter?
I was going to reference Musil’s Man Without Qualities, but that seemed pretentious, and some asshole would bust me for it. So I went with Firesign Theater. Obscure enough to be snottily hip.
All I can think is the boil of racism on America’s butt badly needed to be lanced, and now that it apparently has been, the amount of poison spurting out into the open is ghastly.
He’s a spy and a girl delighter.
I know the Martin case has largely (but not exclusively) fallen along party lines, but is that all there is to suggest this belongs in SRIatD?