Summers Irony Watch
As Harvard president, Larry Summers has adjusted several of his more liberal positions so as to curry favor, or simply not alienate, the Republican congressional majority—by refusing to challenge enforcement of the Solomon Amendment, for example, or promoting patriotism at Harvard by pushing for the return of ROTC to campus. Not that it matters—the GOP is sticking it to higher education anyway.
In voting to cut the federal budget by some $40 billion, the Republicans in Washington have slashed public support for higher education. Here's how the Times describes the cuts:
Nearly one-third of all the savings in the final budget bill comes from student aid, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. Under the bill, college students would pay higher interest rates on loans. Many banks will receive lower subsidies. And the Education Department will work with the Internal Revenue Service to ferret out students and parents who underreport incomes on financial aid applications.
..."This is the biggest cut in the history of the federal student loan program," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for public and private colleges and universities.
It's yet another irony of the Summers administration....ironies which stem from philosophical incoherence or position-shifting for political advantage.
Summers has a visceral dislike of the left, and that's another reason why he's taken some of these positions; he doesn't want to espouse the same political views as, say, Cornel West or Richard Thomas. Of course, the left does believe in federal support of education. So there is that, then.
