Richard Neal, On Ways and Meanness

Old men are wise most of the time.  They are not always stubborn or demagogues. Here’s a bit from Richard Neal’s opening statement during Ways and Mean’s mark-up session.  Neal is 75 years old and he was speaking about bills aimed at punishing universities by yanking tax exemption for their admitting foreign students and not cracking down hard enough on student protests:

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Fast forward to today, this Congress has proven to be an endless waste of time for the American people. All the legislation under consideration is a preview of the Republican brainchild, Project 2025, which won’t hit at the issues on the hearts and minds of folks around the country. Rather, deepen their extremism, gut Social Security and Medicare, and their War on Women.

For starters, I’ve long maintained that the endowment tax was punitive. As Republicans veer further into the political fringes, their ire towards our universities has grown. I can unequivocally denounce antisemitism while recognizing that this legislation won’t do what it intends. As we seek to support our nation’s students and institutions, we want solutions that will work. That’s not what we have before us today. 

With the first bill, they didn’t even bother to vet it with university stakeholders or civil rights experts. Rather, they chose to levy multi-million dollar tax penalties on institutions when fully funding the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights would allow for better enforcement of current law. They have this all backwards, hammering institutions with penalties without any regard for actually enforcing current law to hold institutions accountable.

Next, Republicans are resorting to xenophobic tropes to distract from their inability to govern. Our nation’s higher education is strengthened by diversity, and this legislation wants to clamp down on institutions that accept foreign students by increasing the endowment tax in certain instances.

Then we have a bill that expands 529 plans, but by pitting our public schools against other modes of schooling. Public schools are part of the foundation of our democracy, and 529 plans can be enhanced without putting the institutions that instill so much in our younger generations at risk.

darryll k. jones