State Legislature Votes To Give $12 Million Bailout To Private Morehouse College
by PV
$12 Million in Tax Dollars To Bail-Out A Private College, But No Soup For You!
Rumors have it that HB 77 (the Supplemental Budget bill from Appropriations) sailed out of the House Chamber today with overwhelming support…even though it contained quite the odd, last-minute insertion of a line-item that, on any other day, would have raised an outcry from alert fiscal conservatives.
Based on the Daily Report issued by the House Legislative Network for this 25th Legislative Day, HB 77 bill is now considered to be passed and on its way to Governor Deal’s desk due to the following legislative process as excerpted from the Daily Report:
A “Motion to Agree as Amended†sent this bill back to the Senate for consideration. The Senate has agreed to the House’s position, which represents Final Passage of this bill.
PV Answers The Question of “So What?”: Ahhh…so glad you asked. Because, contained within this Supplemental Budget is a special line item added by House Appropriations Chair Terry England at the very last minute that grants privately-funded Morehouse College a $12,000,000 “bailout” gift from the Legislature with absolutely NO strings attached at all.
NO loan repayment, because it is NOT a loan. NO requirement to demonstrate how this money will be used. It is a gift, plain and simple. A gift, in times of supposedly “tight budgets” and “uncomfortable times” and “cutting to the bone” a slew of other government activities, including those of publicly-funded colleges, HOPE Scholarship yammer out the yin-yang, and sundry other claims from this Session of the Georgia General Assembly about how “tight” the budget is going to be.
PV asks these simple questions of the Georgia House & Georgia Senate:
1) Why is the State of Georgia bailing-out a privately-funded college?
2) Why is the State of Georgia giving $12 Million with absolutely NO requirement of a paying back to the State of this money?
3) Where did Terry England “find” this money to cram-in and gift-it to Morehouse? There was, apparently, $0 dollars in the state’s reserves.
4) Why couldn’t a private college raise tuition to help itself?
5) How is it the responsibility of the State of Georgia to bail-out a private university or private college, or…a private ANYTHING? Especially, when there are tuition woes up and down this state in every other public college/university, etc.?
6) When the State of Georgia is working on new ways to tax its citizens MORE, how could bailing-out a private university be justified in any fashion?
These are questions that need to be addressed, and, considered by Governor Deal before he signs such a bill that includes public funding of a private institution such as Morehouse College.
C’mon, Folks…a $12 million pork rind can buy a LOT of other public needs rather than giving it to a privately-funded interest, don’t ya think?
