Editor:

Michael McFall’s piece (“Obama set to increase Pell grants,” April 27) unintentionally gave reason to pause. In the cited conference, Obama erred on the side of double-dealing by calling one of his “first 100 days” creations, viz. banks subsidization, a “special interest.” He said that “it’s about whether we want to give tens of billions of tax dollars to special interests or whether we want to make college more affordable.” Given past policy, how can a politician stand on both sides of this ambiguous dichotomy without appearing to engage in total charlatanry?

With an unprecedentedly optimistic budget, predicting 4 percent annual growth, whose central tenant is “giving tax dollars” to now-called “special interests,” one has to ponder the a priori assumption that banks don’t need the public-private relationship they have relied on, to date, to recover from failure. One has to further wonder how a student will engagement him- or herself in higher education without viable lending institutions if banks are deprived of this $48 billion industry. This is a classic case of gladiator pollice verso. Raise the champion and whip him for excuses of bread and circus. I for one am tiring of arbitrary, principle-free economic policy and to add the prostitution of bank reputation is sickening, incontinent and tribal. This is not change nor is it something we can believe in.

Zack Oakey,
Ophthalmology Department, Lab Faculty