The Journal Gazette, a local newspaper serving Fort Wayne, recently ran this piece about the drop in per-student college aid. It was forecast that the amount of aid would necessarily go down for at least the next couple years, but now we’re getting some of the exact numbers.

The Gazette had this to say,

Even though there is more money to work with, the state must spread it out among more students…[because] the economic downturn led more than 60,000 additional Indiana students to apply for financial aid.

Also, in a related matter, IU Bloomington has proposed a 4.6 percent in state tuition hike for next year, and double digit hikes for some graduate schools (especially law school).

It’s somewhat upsetting to me that this hasn’t gotten nearly the coverage that the death of Michael Jackson or the affair of Gov. Sanford has gotten. I’m not sure what criteria should be used to determine whose obituaries ought to be covered in the press – whose are newsworthy. Whether their death will have a significant impact on the present? Whether we should reminisce about their past importance? Whether it’s a slow news day?

Sadly (or not, depending on who you are), former Secretary of Defense and former President of the World Bank, Robert McNamara, died this past week. His death is somewhat confusing for me, who as a liberal minded youngster despised the man. But as I’ve grown up (and wised up?) I have come to see him in a different light, through a different worldview. I’m not sure how I feel, yet. No doubt there are others like myself. In fact, Errol Morris, legendary documentary filmmaker who made a movie about McNamara called The Fog of War, captured this confusion brilliantly in a New York Times op-ed.

A few weeks ago we had a staff ed that criticized the Obama administration for not taking an active lead on repealing DOMA. Since the economy has completely taken up the media limelight he hasn’t had much political pressure, aside from gay rights groups, to push for change (change that could shut his political windows on other issues). However, the limelight could shift somewhat in the weeks to come. Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, has just sued the federal government because of DOMA.

An argument for and an argument against the public option.

One of our staff eds this week talked about the F.D.A. being given regulatory control over tobacco products. I, personally, saw it as well as the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 to be measures meant to protect the consumer; and so added a blurb about it in the staff ed (a perk you get when you’re editor.)

Afterward, I got an email asking why we didn’t use one of our previous staff eds to talk about that Credit Card Legislation. I meant to, but overlooked it.

Since Obama signed it last month it’s no longer timely, and so it won’t be in a future staff ed. However, here’s some sources for people who are interested in finding out more. I’d look at them in their order to understand why the measures put in this legislation were chosen as opposed to others.  

What led consumer advocates to want legislation.

A brief of what’s in the new law.

Ben Stein had an interesting column last week in Yahoo! Finance, called Why This Time Feels Different. He talked about why this recession feels more pronounced than others. While “feels” is a bit difficult to measure I could see his point.

Although this recession is often called the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the decline in output and employment is much closer to other recent recessions (see this). However, Stein’s argument that this recession could “feel” worse than its partners could still be true. Over the years people have begun relying on selling their homes for financing their retirements. Because this recession more than the others hit housing, these Americans have essentially lost an unexpected chunk of their retirement savings. With baby boomers starting to reach retirement within the next several years, this could make a temporary pay cut or job loss seem somewhat less significant.

The New York Times had a piece last week about changing the diet of cows to reduce their methane emissions. According to the article, the UN believes that livestock is one of the most serious threats to our global climate. By switching to this new diet a Vermont farm saw an 18 percent drop in methane output, and France has seen an even bigger 30 percent drop.

This is all great, but I was waiting for the catch. Phrases like, “They [the cows] are healthier,” “Their coats are shinier, and the breath is sweet,” prime me to think that going green in this case costs more.

However, there are cost savings! With the new diets cows are producing 10 percent more milk, live longer (produce more milk over their lifetime), and have better health (which I’ll assume means they are cheaper to maintain). What’s more, the new diet that incorporates flax seeds could be made even cheaper if a flax seed heating/processing plant were built here in the U.S.

This is an interesting development. Production could remain the same (or slightly increase) while decreasing emissions. Whereas, in Ireland and Denmark their efforts to decrease methane emissions are leading them to decreased production of beef and milk. Earlier in March of this year, Ireland proposed a 13 pound per animal cow tax (and Denmark was considering an 80 pound tax per cow). Considering the demand for beef and milk are expected to rise in the future the former seems like the better option.

Liberty University, a private university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell, recently banned a student Democrat club, claiming that “the Democratic party violated the university’s principles, because it supports abortion, socialism and the agenda of gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

Although Liberty University is a private institution and therefore should be allowed to perform such an action, this instance makes me wonder how they came up with their name. After all, banning a student organization, especially one as benign as College Democrats, contradicts the idea of “freedom from restriction of doing or thinking something.”

As well, according to the University’s statement, “Everything we do here is designed to develop Christ-centered men and women with the values, knowledge and skills essential to impact tomorrow’s world.” That’s fine, they admit their Christian bias. But I wonder then, why are “socialist” values objectionable?

The college experience should certainly challenge and test our beliefs, but its ability to do that is gone when the university itself doesn’t facilitate free discussion.

The Economist recently reported that because on May 19th its citizens rejected the proposed tax hikes and budget cuts, the state of California is now facing a budget deficit of $21.3 billion. (Just fyi, Cali is expected to bring in $82 billion in revenue this year.)

California might be the state most crippled by the recession. Due to the housing market’s collapse, the state’s budget, which drew heavily on property taxes, is nearing bankruptcy. However, the credit crisis can only be given so much blame. After all, it didn’t cause Californians to acquire champagne tastes, it only helped give them a beer budget.

Jack Kelly, who wrote a column just before the elections, did an excellent job pointing out some of the reasons why California’s expenditures are so high. I’d recommend reading his piece along with the article by The Economist, which mentions different reasons.

According to the Rasmussen Reports, a public opinion polling firm, only 24% of Americans know what cap-and-trade is. Their piece, published last week, said,

The gap between Capitol Hill and Main Street is huge when it comes to the so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation being considered in Congress. So wide, in fact, that few voters even know what the proposed legislation is all about.

With these numbers it’s a bit hard to say that any side on the issue has popular support. Although the cap-and-trade scheme has been called a tax in disguise by some Republicans, it’s unlikely that the Obama administration wanted to confuse the public with a phrase that clearly states its intent – to cap carbon emissions by selling permits to polluters, and then allow the private sector to trade those permits amongst themselves. More than likely, the public’s ignorance is a result of their own disinterest in following current events.

It’s poll results like this that make me wonder why ‘Get Out the Vote’ campaigns are necessary. Do we really trust people who aren’t motivated enough to make a trip to city hall and sign their name to be informed enough to responsibly vote?