At the Senate Finance Committee hearing yesterday, “Can the Middle Class Make Ends Meet,” I testified, along with a Brookings fellow, a social worker specializing in pediatric oncology, and the president of a tax-cut foundation. I can’t repeat the whole hearing, but Senator Baucus who called the meeting and Senators Stabenow, Lincoln, and Salazar offered some very thoughtful comments.
One exchange stands out. Senator Salazar asked if I had any ideas about how to help middle class families afford college. I talked about Service Pays (direct government loans for four years of college expenses, which could be forgiven if the graduate put in four years of public service — essentially an expanded GI bill). Several senators seemed interested, but Senator Jim Bunning was clearly out of sorts. He explained that he paid for college for his seven children and he didn’t ask for a “government hand-out.” He wanted to know when thinking had changed that families should expect “government handouts” if they wanted to send their kids to college. I haven’t checked the transcript, but I think he said “government handouts” about ten times.
I said that I had attended public school from first grade through high school, and my parents had never thought they were taking a “government handout.” Back in 1972, most Americans thought that a youngster could make it into the middle class with a high school diploma — and the government provided free public schools for nearly all kids. Today, Americans overwhelmingly believe that the entry-level ticket to the middle class is a college degree — and the data back them up. In line with its traditional role, the government could take a more aggressive role in helping students pay for their college educations.
Besides, what are the good old days of no-government-help that the senator remembers? The GI bill was the way a grateful nation invested in the young people who had served their country. Just another government handout?
I think the senator and I were having an argument over the basic social contract. The senator seemed to be suggesting that the state has no role in developing opportunities for its citizens. As he put it, he provided for his own children. He also seemed to imply that education is a private good — something that is valuable only for the individual who has it and that produces no benefits for the rest of us in terms of higher productivity, more taxes to be paid, more social stability, and so on.
I think the senator is wrong on both counts. There may be reasons that someone would not support Service Pays. But if making more federal loans available to kids who want to go to college and canceling those debts if they work in public interest is just one more “government handout,” then the social contract that made America great has become something cramped and ugly.
