John McCain Doesn't Have an Education Policy or an Inequality Policy
Why am I not surprised?
Matthew Yglesias:
Matthew Yglesias: As we saw a week ago, Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking on behalf of John McCain, said that the inability of the number of people graduating from college to keep pace with the growth in the skills premium for college graduates is the sole cause of growing inequality. As I said at the time, this is wrong. The evidence is clear that other things are going on. But it’s also clear that this is one factor. And given that it really is an important part of the puzzle, and that the McCain team thinks it’s the entire puzzle, you’d think that John McCain would have a real higher education policy. But he doesn’t. Until now. But today, via Steve Benen, McCain unveils his “plan” for affordability:
As president, Mr. McCain would take a bully pulpit approach to student aid, aides say. Rather than propose any new federal money, he would jawbone and publicly try to coax colleges to slow their rate of tuition increases using the federal tax exemptions they receive as leverage….
Mr. McCain is also calling for the Pell Grant, which assists low-income students, to be high enough to cover in-state undergraduate tuition…. Mr. McCain, however, has not proposed any new money for the Pell program.
Long story short, I think we can expect inequality to keep growing.
