July 2019


www.hamptonroadsmessenger.com


The Hampton Roads Messenger 5 Your Opinion Matters


Tone Deaf Congress Wants Military Pork


Pell Grants Needed for Low-Income Students


BY DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX The F-35 stealth fighter aircraft


is one expensive plane. It costs $ 135 million to produce a single aircraft, but more than the Pentagon has requested. Why? Lobbyists for Lockheed Martin, the company that makes these aircraft, have exercised their fine art of persuasion to convince the House Armed Services Committee that these aircraft are needed for our national "defense". Would not you think the Pentagon has a better idea of what they "need" than lobbyists? Gold are the profits of this corporation more important than the fiscal prudence that so many in Washington, DC Social security, health care or programs that address human needs?


There is much more to the


"Defense" budget, as we spend more on our budget. But spending on the F-35 aircraft is especially egregious. More than a trillion dollars will be spent on this aircraft, a trillion. Enough to eliminate student debt, or fully endow the nation's historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) with money left over! What do we get from this trillion? We have an aircraft with supply chain problems that the General Accounting Office has described as "falling short of warfighter requirements". They say the aircraft, "can not perform as often as required", partly because of "shortage in spare parts and limited recovery capability". So Lockheed Martin is producing this $135 million aircraft, more than two thousand,


Bloomberg News describes the


F-35 program, "The world's costliest weapons program." Why, then, are lobbyist pushing Congress to order more of these planes, more, even than the Pentagon wants? Follow the money. It's all about the profits.


While the House Armed


Services Committee is planning to waste trillions of dollars on these costly and flawed F-35 planes, poor


people around the world gathered in Washington to hear from Rev. William Barber, and Rev. Liz Theoharis about the Moral Budget. Believe me, there is no room for F-35 fighter planes in the Moral Budget. Instead, the poor People's Campaign is spending much more on human needs, like heath care, education, and that oh-so-basic need - food! It may have been impactful for members of the House of Armed Services Committee to spend a few moments with the Poor People's Congress, the thousand or so people crowded into Trinity Hall at Trinity Washington University to request equity in education, .


The Poor People's Moral Budget


has the theme, "Everybody Has the Right to Live". The budget would cut $ 350 billion in military spending, while increasing taxes on the wealthy, corporations, and Wall Street. It represents a paradigm shift from our nation's current focus on militarism to a focus on human needs. Our nations hawks, and our President, believe that profligate military spending makes our world safer, which is nonsense! Indeed, the possibility of military action against Iran, suggests that militarism makes the world dangerous, not safer. In the case of this militaristic climate, the move to order more Lockheed Martin,


The Poor People's Congress


operates in stark contrast to the House Armed Services Committee. Rev. William Barber testifies before the House Budget Committee on June 19, 2019, calling for an end to police violence against poor people and urged Congress to embrace its moral budget. By continuing profligate spending on F35 fighter planes, and funding more planes than even the Pentagon wants, Congress is engaging in policy against all Americans, but especially the 140 million who are poor!


BY REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, SR. Nuts. There may be fancier words


to describe Donald Trump’s latest lunacy — but just plain “nuts” is most accurate. The president decided, overnight, that he wanted the United States to go “back to the Moon, then Mars.”To help pay for it, he called on Congress to cut an additional $1.9 billion out of the funds designated to pay for Pell Grants — the grants that help students from low-income families pay for college. For those children, for the country, for our future, this is just simply nuts.


Pell Grants provide students


from families making under $50,000 a year, a small grant — up to$ 5,775 maximum — to help pay for college. Most of it goes to families making far less than that — $20,000 or less. It aids the ambitious children of low-income families in rural and urban areas to lift themselves above their circumstances.


With the cost of college rising


far faster than incomes, the grant levels are far too small. When first created, a Pell Grant could cover up 92 percent of state college costs, now it covers only 29 percent. Students from families that are not wealthy are forced to take on greater and greater debt to pay for the education that everyone agrees they need. Student debt — now at about $1.6 trillion — is greater than the amount owed to credit cards or in auto loans. One result is that a smaller percentage of children from low-income families are going to college, and more and more of those that do go find that they simply can’t afford to finish. America, which led the world in education, now finds itself falling behind, not because the kids are lazy or stupid, but because the so-called adults are making advanced education affordable only for the affluent. Trump’s cuts only add insult


to this injury. The administration justifies


the cuts — which are added to the $2 billion Trump’s budget proposal already would cut from Pell Grant funds — because there is a surplus in the Pell Grant accounts, stemming in part because the Obama administration stopped subsidizing private lenders and because fewer kids from low-income families can afford to go to college. The administration promises that there will be no cuts in the grant levels of current recipients.


That is a far remove from what


is needed. The surplus should be devoted to raising the grant levels to make it possible for more kids to afford college, and even that would be insufficient. The Pentagon says the endless war in Afghanistan — the one that Trump promised to end — costs about $45 billion a year. Common sense would suggest bringing the troops home, saving the money, and using a part of it to increase Pell funding so that average grant levels could be raised. The country — and the young — would be better served if the administration adopted the proposal of Bernie Sanders and others and worked with states to make public colleges tuition free — as they are in Germany and other advanced industrial countries.


Trump woke up one day and


decided it would be neat to return to space, as he tweeted, “in a BIG WAY.” Terrific. But to do that by raiding funds dedicated to supporting the college education of children of low-wage workers isn’t making America great again. It is just plain nuts.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16