The Sun-Times editorial board thinks that community colleges should be free in our country.
Who can be against free stuff?
I think it’s time we had a serious conversation in our country about money.
It seems that the Sun-Times expects the federal government to pay for this, so we can limit this discussion to that. Our federal government will soon be $30 trillion in debt. We used to borrow the money to pay our debt. Now we just print a lot of that.
Does nobody see any problems with this?
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When you carry debt, everything becomes more expensive. We are currently paying about a half trillion dollars a year in interest. That is simply wasted money. It would be like you bought a large flat screen television on sale but then never paid it off. You just kept paying interest on it forever. Or never paid off your car.
The whole role of government has shifted in our country. According the Declaration of Independence, government exists to secure our rights. Our rights are what freedom is all about. Free speech, free press, right to assemble, to keep and bear arms.
Now government exists to take care of people, meet every need, solve every problem. And we are finding there isn’t enough money in the world to do it. Raising taxes won’t solve it because they will always spend more than they get.
The government says there is no inflation, but if you actually spend money in the real world, you know that isn’t true. You can find graphs on the internet of long-term federal spending, long-term federal debt and inflation, and the graphs match perfectly.
Now they want to work on a new infrastructure package that will be another couple of trillion dollars.
Our politicians have lost any sense of reality and responsibility. They think we can have it all. Just borrow the money or create it. What could go wrong?
Larry Craig, Wilmette
Respecting community college student
As distinguished professor emeritus of Wright College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago, I fully support free community college in the United States. I am more than willing as a taxpayer to support the opportunity of students who can begin their higher educational journey through the more intimate classes of the community college setting. The requirement of maintaining a B average and getting tutorial help if needed is a sound and fair foundation for a free education.
I have great respect for the community college student, some of whom do it all at once. Raising a family, workin, and going to college is a challenging load taken on by many.
I cannot think of a better use of my tax dollars than to give our youth a chance to grow and succeed in their journey toward self-respect and the capacity to make an independent life in our society.
Elynne Chaplik-Aleskow, Lakeview
California and free community college
With all due respect to Tennessee, Gov. Bill Haslam and the Sun-Times editorial board, ard, while the program Tennessee Promise rightly can claim tuition-free community college first-in-the-nation status in the most recent decade, California community colleges were tuition-free for several decades until 1984, when a $5 per-unit fee was created.
California’s 1960 master plan for higher education included free and plentiful community college statewide, and even today a generous system of state grants results in more than half of the 2.1 million California community college students attending tuition-free.
Affordable, accessible, quality public community college should remain a nonpartisan public policy that all Americans can embrace.
Larry Galizio
President/CEO, Community College League of California
Sacramento
Holding police critics accountable
I am a retired Chicago police officer. Our brothers and sisters in blue are constantly being bashed by citizens and media. If this past weekend in our great city was an example of what’s to come, God help us. People rally to protest against police and how officers treat citizens. But I’m still waiting on the mighty mobilization to combat the senseless weekly carnage that occurs here in Chicago. People want police accountability. I would like to see those very same people be accountable themselves .
Nenad Markovich, Portage Park
