Monday, February 13, 2006

Change drug law

Dave Budge has an important post urging readers to contact members of Congress to repeal the law denying federal financial aid for college to people with drug convictions. No law has ever better defined the word "stupid" when it comes to this nation's drug policy: Let's take people who have made a dumb mistake and deny them the education they need to avoid making dumb mistakes. Insane.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

The entire federal student loan program is insane. Like Medicare and Medicaid, which drive up health care costs by underpinning the market with fixed prices for services, federal student loans stuff the universities with students who would not be there if they had to pay their own way. This artificial demand for college seats has created a catastrophic rise in college costs, no different from the catastrophic rise in health care costs caused by government intervention. The only way to get college costs to come down is to get the government out of the college subsidy business.

Therefore, anything that reduces or constrains the number of government subsidized student loans is good, even if it is a law disqualifying people because of drug convictions. It is good for the universities because they will have to compete for students by improving the quality of their programs and faculty while keeping their costs low; it is good for the parents and students who must pay their own way because their costs will fall and the money saved can be directed to other productive uses; and it is good for the economy overall because the misallocation of tax money now being pumped into the university system will cease, which opens the way for lower taxes and therefore increased economic productivity.

While there are plenty of good arguments in favor of using drug convictions as a reason to deny college loans, the truth is the more disqualifications there are--for whatever reason--the better.

[Note: There are more laws like this one. For example, the IRS will not allow a parent or student to claim the Hope tax credit for education expenses (up to $1500 per student) if there is a felony drug conviction on the student’s record.]

David said...

"there are plenty of good arguments in favor of using drug convictions as a reason to deny college loans"

Name one, please.

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of smart kids, who's parents have divorced, and thier parents hate each other who never get the opportunity to go to college.

Why give help to hop-heads?

Anonymous said...

David:

Are you serious? You pick out one line from my entire comment and question it? Does that mean you totally agree with my MAIN argument, that federal loan subsidies are driving up the cost of college for everyone; that not everyone belongs in college; and that any law that reduces the artificial supply of students is a likely a good law?

Here are some points that might help you to better understand why society (or the government or the universities or even employers) might disqualify persons convicted of drug offenses:

1. Any criminal conviction—misdemeanor or felony—may indicate a tendency toward anti-social behavior or even developing pathologies. This is especially true when people start having problems with the law at a young age.

2. Universities routinely punish, suspend, and expel students for acts that are not even considered criminal acts in society at large or are overlooked by society. Illegal drug use is one. Underage drinking is another. “Hate speech” would be a third. If universities punish, suspend, and expel students for such acts, why would they admit a student who has already been documented by society for committing such acts?

3. The same holds true for employment. Many corporations are now monitoring each employee’s arrest and conviction record for crimes unrelated to the workplace. They pay a flat fee per employee per month for the monitoring service. An arrest or conviction for even a minor crime, such as so-called partner abuse, or even a hypothetical crime, such as DUI, may result in immediate suspension or discharge from employment.

David said...

Chuck, I didn't comment on your main argument because it doesn't interest me. Even if constraining student loans were a good idea, it doesn't follow that anything that constrains loans is good. Under that line of reasoning, you could argue that denying loans to black people is a good idea.

In response to the three points in your second comment:

1. All the more reason to get them a good education. When they are young is not when you should decide to write them off.

2. Because it's in the best interest of society to give these people a second chance, and because universities (both public and private) rely on society for support.

3. Irrelevant. Hiring is a private contract. Publicly supported education is a different ballgame, and the rules ought to be different.

Anonymous said...

David:

You have this so wrong it would be comical if you were not in earnest.

First, your argument, or the subject of this thread, should be of no interest to any rational individual. You are trying to advance the idea that a particular law is “insane” while overlooking the fact that the law is part of an insane program, namely the government student loan program. It is Looking Glass Logic. The government’s student loan program is not insane, but the government’s student loan program rules are insane.

Denying government-subsidized loans is always a good idea. Nobody should get them for any reason. You need to understand that simple economic concept.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept the idea that student loan subsidies are not economically “insane,” that they represent some kind of “social good” and should be encouraged, you seem not to understand that such subsidized loans are welfare. And as with all welfare, the government makes the rules for who can and cannot receive it. For example, drug offenses are often used to disqualify people from living in public housing projects. But let me make this simple for you: Society wants to discourage the use of illegal drugs. Society pays for subsidized student loans. Therefore, you must be a good little boy if you want society to give you a student loan.

Moving on to bleeding-heart territory—about giving people a “second chance”—join the chorus. But your chant will fall on deaf ears. There are simply too many people (mostly women) who insist on locking others away forever, or putting them on probation forever, or making them register with the authorities forever. Go ahead and sing the Second Chance Song for your drug of choice, but no one will hear it in a society where, increasingly, there are no second chances.

Anonymous said...

And yet "Chuck Willis" gets hundreds of chances to post his inanities under dozens of pseudonyms all over the Web. Ain't freedom grand?

David said...

Chuck, You write:

"First, your argument, or the subject of this thread, should be of no interest to any rational individual."

Yet you apparently have found it interesting enough to comment twice. So how rational are you?

Anonymous said...

David’s Dumb and Dumber Defense: Promote a dumb idea, and then when someone points out how dumb it is, call him dumb for reading it and pointing it out.

David said...

Chuck's beside-the-point offense: If you can't respond to what's posted, respond to something else entirely and pretend it never happened.

Anonymous said...

Now for something completely different...

If Chuck is correct about the affect of student loans, then don't loans of any kind create false demand? Should we allow car dealers to offer artificially low interest rates on car loans?

Anonymous said...

Quoting David: “If you can't respond to what's posted, respond to something else entirely and pretend it never happened.”

That is called “projection” in psychiatry, David. And that’s precisely what you do whenever you discover you’ve started a thread on a subject you know nothing about.

Trying to discuss government student loan rules while simultaneously trying to avoid a discussion of the government student loan program is ridiculous. But that seems to be your style: Take a subject out of context and pretend the larger context does not exist. (It is also the most common economic fallacy—analyzing economic effects without considering the larger economic context.)

Suggestion 1: Stick to what you know, whatever that may be.

Suggestion 2: Don’t repeat what you’ve read in the liberal-biased press or what you’ve read on lunatic leftwing blogs.

Suggestion 3. If you decide not to follow Suggestions 1 and 2, above, consider changing the name of this blog to “The Billings Dissembler.”

Anonymous said...

Jim Larson asked: “[D]on't loans of any kind create false demand? Should we allow car dealers to offer artificially low interest rates on car loans?”

1. The short answer is no. Discount loans by car dealers may cause a “pull ahead” effect, but a loan, in and of itself, cannot create demand where none exists. (“Pull ahead” is defined as causing future sales to occur in the present, i.e., consumers reschedule their future purchases to take advantage of a present discount.)

2. You cannot stop a fool from going out of business—even the government. If anyone offers a below-market loan, he will take a loss. If he persists in doing that, he will go out of business. If the government offers below-market loans, it will attempt to shift the loss onto the general public in the form of higher taxes. If that is not possible because of the current political climate, the government may borrow the money to cover the loss, in the hope that the political climate in the future will allow a tax increase. The only other alternative is to cut someone else’s government handout to cover the loan loss.

3. I believe that you are trying to advance the fallacy that there is a “hidden” demand for college that cannot express itself at current price levels. Phrased differently, “If college cost less, more people would go to college.” But that is absurd on its face because it is a circular argument. The principle reason college costs are so high is because the government is supporting the price of a college education.

Anonymous said...

Wow.

David said...

No, "Chuck," you are being ridiculous. This thread started with my support of a change in rules for federal education money. You responded that the entire program should be scuttled. I think that's dumb, but you are entitled to think that, and I really have no interest in trying to dissuade you from your position.

But whether you like the program or not, it does exist. And if it is going to continue to exist, which I believe it will, then it should have rules that serve the best interests of the program itself and of society as a whole.

Again, you don't have to agree with that either, and it is a matter of indifference to me whether you do. But for you to pretend that I am changing the topic, then for you to arrogantly prescribe to me how I should choose and manage the topics I write about on my own blog, is absurd.

There can be only one explanation: You're Don Mellon.

Anonymous said...

Changing the topic again, I see.

Now I'm somebody else.

And you are? What? Hillary Clinton?

David said...

An absolutely perfect Don Mellon response: a nondenial denial, an attempt to throw the topic back at the poster, a final irrelevant addition.

For once in your pathetic life, give a straight answer: Who the hell are you?

Anonymous said...

Quoting David: "There can only be one explanation: You're Don Mellon."

What? Now "chuck willis" is "Don Mellon" simply because you cannot conduct a rational argument?

Anonymous said...

Dante Smith--Forget it. David is so desperate now he's started deleting post from this thread.

David said...

The only comment I deleted was one that contained a racial slur.

And the only commenter who consistently makes racial slurs on this blog is, you guessed it, Don Mellon.

Anonymous said...

[Readers Please Note: Don Mellon is a black high school principal from Illinois. David Crisp deletes all comments posted by blacks, all comments concerning black cultural issues, and all comments using black English. Now THAT’S a “racial slur”!]

David said...

And that, Anonymous 655, is a lie.

Anonymous said...

youre just a liar yourself arent you david? you dont have any idea whos posting comments on this blog do you? you got any proof? lets see it. put up or shut up

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