Corvette or conscience

Let's gather a group of four or five college educated people, and ask them what they would do with $60,000. What ideas would they come up with? Buying a house, dividing the money evenly, donating to the poor or financing grad school, are perhaps some of the possibilities that might come out of such a convocation. \nApparently, the IU Student Association executive board didn't pay attention in their respective math classes during their time here at IU. They are planning on wasting $60,000 that would normally go to student organizations, on a Corvette. IUSA only appropriated $10,000 this year for the Grass Roots Initiative Fund, which gives money to politically and religiously affiliated student groups through generated IU credit card revenue. The extra revenue, this $60,000, will pay for the car. \nTheir rationale is that the chance of winning a Corvette will bring students out in droves to vote in the November general election. IUSA should be ashamed of themselves for perpetrating such an extravagant misuse of funds that could do so much more than be used to coerce voters. The executive board is tainting the very thing they claim to treasure -- the privilege to represent the student voice in university affairs -- by replacing the common civic duty of voting with a ballot stuffing contest. IUSA apparently does not care if students voting in the elections know anything about the candidates or their issues. IUSA apparently doesn't care about disenfranchising their student body by using funds -- that could be given to student groups dedicated to helping the entire student population -- on one person.\nAside from the political and procedural mistake that IUSA is making, anyone who wins the car will be presented with a very heavy burden. The taxes on a new Corvette are higher than the cost of most student's meal plans for the year. The insurance for a race-ready luxury sports car driven by a college student will be more per month than some students pay for books in an entire year. After all of that, you still have to find a place to park the thing where it won't get bumped or keyed by some jealous Yugo driver. What kind of a prize is that?\nThe money that IUSA is abusing could have been put to much better use, like helping to defray the newest $1,000 fee that IU will implement for next year's freshmen. For the cost of the ego machine with no headroom and no trunk space, underprivileged freshmen could be assisted financially on their way to getting a college education. Even free food at the polls would have cost less than a Corvette, and it would be a far more ethical way to get voters to the ballot boxes than making voting analogous to buying a lottery ticket.\nA good advertising campaign to promote both IUSA and the candidates and gather student interest would have cost much less than $60,000 and would have been a much better public relations scheme than bribing voters. By mis-leading people to the ballot box, IUSA risks losing credibility and respect in the eyes of the people who count the most, the people who they must negotiate with in the end -- the students.