Frightening wastes of public money

Americans are illiterate, over "educated," and will be paying for those two priviledges for many years to come thanks to the recent stimulus bill to use public funds to boost the private sector's economic stance. According to a recent Cato Institute article, only 31% of bachelor degree holding Americans are "proficient" readers (read: capable of perfoming complex and challenging literacy activities) based on information from the NAAL. Those Americans with only a high school diploma or GED don't even average above the "basic" literacy level.

So why are we illiterate? Quite clearly, according to the Cato article, because money is being thrown after a problem that money will never be able to solve: how best to educate our children. Why are we "overeducated"? Because it is so important to get a bachelor degree in these times that without one many jobs are not even within reach of those who do not have their bachelor degree based simply on rules and regulations of many large company's policies from their HR departments. We are forcing children to get a bachelor degree when the work required of many bachelor degree holding employees does not, in fact, require $30,000 or much, much more in education training after high school in order to properly fulfill the duties of many jobs in this economy.

Lastly, why will we be paying for the priviledges of being illiterate but over educated for many years to come? Because the US government has leveraged our futures for the immediacies of re-election in the near-term.  The recent $800B stimulus bill includes $150B (not million, BILLION - almost 20% of all of that money) to be used towards education.  This money must come from somewhere, and most likely that will be through higher taxes in the years to come.

While that much additional money available for education may end up helping those of us who will be getting further educational loans to finance the high cost of education in this country, I hardly think it is a worthwhile expenditure of my future tax dollars.  We will all be eventually paying for this priviledge twice: once to the institutions we owe the priviledge of learning in, and once again through our tax dollars earned after receiving our education. And further taxation to pay for this plan is an inevitability, for there is no other way to pay for such whims of the government except through a military conquest and subsequent pillaging of a lesser neighbor, which the US would likely never do to the tune of $800B in "plunder."  Even if the US attempted to do so the global repercussions would be so devestating as to make us another civilization on its way to complete and utter ruin.