In a telephone interview on Friday, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education compared Pell Grants to "welfare" and decried the fact that students who receive them don't have any sort of graduation requirement and could go straight from the education grant to "food stamps." For those not in the know, Pell Grants assist low-income students pay for the cost of a college education.
"So you can go to college on Pell Grants -- maybe I should not be telling anybody this because it’s turning out to be the welfare of the 21st century," said Rehberg in an interview with Blog Talk Radio. "You can go to school, collect your Pell Grants, get food stamps, low-income energy assistance, section 8 housing, and all of a sudden we find ourselves subsidizing people that don’t have to graduate from college. And there ought to be some kind of commitment and endgame."Pell Grants. Welfare. Food Stamps. Section 8. Whatever. It's all the same thing to these folks. It's all about money. And since it's all about money, it should be no surprise that what is freaking these guys out (or at least what they say their concerns are) is how quickly the cost of the Pell Grant program is rising.
Well, duh. HELLO! People are unemployed. We are out of work. More of us than ever. Of course the cost of the program is rising -- maybe the tons of folks who take this time to return to school and seek a better life should be supported instead of vilified. Have they ever thought that it might be a Pell Grant that actually keeps an unemployed person ready to make a career change from becoming a future welfare recipient?
Well, that would assume good intentions on the part of Rep. Denny Rehberg and his ilk. In reality, they are just hiding behind their "fiscal concerns" to do what they have wanted to do along -- take every opportunity to screw those who need a little help in order to make more out of their lives.
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