Alienating students, too-rethugs are on a roll

[babylonsister]

Posted with permission.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10591632-alienating-students-too


Alienating students, too
By Steve Benen
-
Tue Mar 6, 2012 10:04 AM EST


When it comes to alienating key voting constituencies, Republicans are on a roll. The GOP has already gone out of its way to push Latino voters away, and seems to operating under the assumption that women no longer vote at all.

Yesterday, Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, decided to alienate students, too.

The high school senior who stood up at Mitt Romney's town hall meeting here today was worried about how he and his family would pay for college, and wanted to hear what the candidate would do about rising college costs if elected. He didn't realize that Mr. Romney was about to use him to demonstrate his fiscal conservatism to the crowd.

The answer: nothing.

Mr. Romney was perfectly polite to the student. He didn't talk about the dangers of liberal indoctrination on college campuses, as Rick Santorum might have. But his warning was clear: shop around and get a good price, because you're on your own.

Romney could have talked about student loans, Pell Grants, or efforts to help curtail sharp increases in tuition rates, but the Republican instead urged the Ohio student to find a college "that has a little lower price."

Maybe the kid can get a break after graduating? Romney rejected that, too: "{D}on't expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on."

This isn't exactly surprising, since Romney endorsed Paul Ryan's House GOP budget plan that includes severe cuts to college aid, but as the New York Times report added, Romney's blunt you're-on-your-own response was "pretty brutal."

In the 2008 presidential election, there was a striking age gap -- Obama not only beat McCain among younger voters, he did so by a two-to-one margin. Four years later, with Republicans now showing unrestrained hostility towards higher ed and helping students, don't be too surprised if younger voters rally behind Obama in even greater numbers in 2012.

Indeed, the contrast is striking. The president considers his student-loan reforms to be among his key domestic achievements, including doubling the investment in Pell Grants, and creating the "American Opportunity Tax Credit" that gave 9.4 million families a break on tuition rates. His likely GOP challenger's advice to students? Good luck figuring something out.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. Gee. The least he could have done is give the kid a pair of bootstraps.

If Republicans had their way, that's the only help he could plan on.

[part man all 86]

2. exactly!

[bongbong]

3. Hubris

Make no mistake, the 1% and 0.1% repigs live in the same bubble world that their brainless supporters in the 99% (usually the lowest 25% and getting lotsa gov't handouts, according to the NY Times) do. So according to the alternate reality they live in, they're the alphas with no challengers on the horizon.

The 1% and 0.1% now have no problem basically just telling people they're in a Darwinian struggle with the cards loaded against them. Between voter caging, repig election fraud, and Citizen's United, the psychopaths think they can issue endless refrains of Marie Antoinette and get away with it.

The sad thing is they're probably right.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. "Romney could have talked about student loans, Pell Grants, or efforts to help

curtail sharp increases in tuition rates,...". The author is mistaken. Romney could NOT have talked about those things because they are foreign to him, not in his range of experience.

[onethatcares]

5. rmoney could have told him to become a janitor

at the college the kid wanted to go to.