Bush avoids a Draft by cutting pell grants?

[insane_cratic_gal]

I wrote a blog on this.. but i'll just cut some of the important stuff out and paste it here..

The current bill sitting in limbo wants to cut 90,000 Pell Grants and alter 1,000,000 cuts to existing Pell Grants.
Bush eliminated $225 million Youth Opportunities Grants program which provides job training to young people.

With the No Child Left Behind Bill, Rumsfield managed to throw in a whammy. Schools receiving federal education funds must hand over the names, addresses, and phone numbers of every junior and senior to local recruiters upon request. If the school refuses to hand the information over, the Department of Defense steps in and with threats of federal funding being taken away

Military commanders are asking for 50,000 more troops in Iraq. The recruiting target for the Army is 80,000. So who needs a draft when we can slash the opportunities for America's poor youth. Students graduating from highschool are now faced with a 6% unemployment economy. 90,000 pell grants slashed, and 1,000,000 altered to disqualify those currently going to reapply for their pell money. Throwing them into a minium wage job with no insurance? Why not drop the value of the dollar? So the economy slides just that much more. No, lets sell them on the idea they are fighting for our freedom! Leave them in ignorance, let them watch fox news as a brain washing device.

Just look at it this way, it's proven the military comes up short with a booming economy. Take all of those chances away from highschool grads, college, job training, economy, insurance. You have a "opportunities lost Draft". When there is so little on the table, so little choice that our "voluntary" service, are desperate, rather then voluntary.


What do you guys think? Not that I put anything past the man but is it feasible? A sneaky way to do business?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[insane_cratic_gal]

2. the pell grant is a big part

When you consider the income ration the military targets.. is the poor and the poor use pellgrants to get into college.

No child left behind has to give recruiters the names and addresses of students (trust me they use them).. else they lose their federal funding?
It is free money based on your income.. you have to maintain a c average to keep it. I got through college that way, my parents couldn't afford it.
The military doesn't want idiots, they want you, to want to go to college but be unable to afford it. GI bill is a major selling factor for military.

you don't think it's feasible?

[ugarte]

5. You're absolutely right, Bush has no interest in drafting the rich

Why draft, when you can keep conning the poor?

How much are they lowering the minimum income in order to be eligible? I think it used to be something like $30,000...

[insane_cratic_gal]

7. still looking for that factor

I don't have that information yet, but I would love to know it

I believe the cuts won't happen until the bill passes, which is on hold for Jan. and returns to congress floor.

[Lefta Dissenter]

3. Huh,

Interesting response... I don't know about you, but I'm not embarrassed about anything, other than the fact that so many of my fellow American citizens have been, and continue to be, duped by this administration.

If you don't believe a draft is on its way, track down link to Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio's speech on the subject. It's only two minutes or so long... you can spare that much time, can't you? :shrug:

edited to add link, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/7/195645/549 click on the 'absolutely dynamite' link...

[wicket]

4. "Is a pell grant really the gatekeeper to higher education?"

For many poor and middle class students it is.

[southpaw]

6. Oh? Unfounded?

Do you have access to information that the rest of us aren't privy to?

Nice post count, by the way. Something smells freepy!


Did I call that one, or what! TOMBSTONE!!!!
:nuke:

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[insane_cratic_gal]

10. My Hubby is Active Navy

You'll all hate this but he is a Public's affairs guy for the recruiting district in PA. He doesn't recruite but promotes the navy awarness.

The military like any other business as a marketing crew, they hired spike lee to do the navy commericals not too long ago. they have flashy vans, flight similulators that attract teens. I don't know alot of rich people in the service. But it's all a sales pitch.

When the economy was good and pell grants and college money was avaliable, they (army) did not meet their goals, by 6,000 recruits.. at 74,000 they now need to recruit(this was last years 2003)79,500 people per year. their budget for recruiting just went up 12. million and they hired on an extra 1,000 people.

we know we have a shortage of troops, we have a back door draft to prove it. Do you believe all of those young guys over there ages 19 to 23 is the majority, were well off sons and daughter's of the elite?

[ugarte]

11. Exactly, 'Just a Job, Not An Adventure'

Anyone who says most kids don't join the service for economic reasons is not living in the real world.

[southpaw]

12. So how DO we win national elections?

Sorry to be so reactionary...

But seriously, how do we win national elections? Do we abandon our principles? Ignore such obvious recruitment ploys as the one now being enacted? Turning a blind eye to the flag-draped, scripture quoting evil that the GOP is selling to the masses?

No. I refuse.

To my understanding, the draft is not something the Bush cabal WANTS necessarily. They simply need a large and ever growing military to fuel their PNAC ambitions. If military enlistment is down, it is up to the war mongers to stimulate it by any means necessary. Making higher education and living-wage jobs less accessible to young people guarantees a minimum 16% to 18% increase in military enlistment. (Check the stats under Reagan-Bush).

I think the draft is something that the right will deny until it becomes absolutely necessary. Then, they will wrap it in the flag and have Falwell, Robertson, Dobson et. al. proclaim that it is the will of gawd for the gub'ment to call up the best-est and brightest to die for their lord and their country to keep us safe from satan's evil terra-ists.... and the sheep will fall in line.

[mdhunter]

8. Frankly, for some people, the answer is yes.

And, while I highly doubt that the administration wanted to slash the grants explicitly for the reason of increasing the draftability of the poorer high school grads I have zero doubt that, somewhere along the line, someone said, "And, you know, there might be an upside to this(cutting the grants), poor kids who don't go to college and can't find a job are more likely to enroll in the military."

Republicans are nothing if not devilishly optimistic.

And, also, while I don't think there will be a real, Vietnam style, draft any time soon the conditions to call for one are still present and are still viable. So to say the "the draft theory which was totally unfounded" I think is wrong. There is still a pressing foundation for a draft, it's just not happening in the traditional sense - they're calling up 53 men instead.

[Bettie]

13. Without Pell grants

I could not have gone to college at all.

Cutting them will force people who really are motivated toward higher education to consider the military in order to finance their dreams.

The pell grant is one of the gatekeepers, and an important one.

[insane_cratic_gal]

14. more on the no child left behind.

<snip>

"It's a kind of ransom, isn't it?" asks New Haven antiwar activist Stephen Kobasa, who's a teacher. "The money is still well beneath what these low-income schools require, and it's a dreadful betrayal of the students. They see no hope in other areas. We are just raising them for the slaughter.

"The pressure of military recruitment in inner-city schools has always been great and this law just compounds it," Kobasa says.

Recruiting at local schools has increased since Sept. 11, says Sgt. Thomas Gagne, a recruiter with the Army's New Haven office. "No Child Left Behind has gotten us a couple of lists we have been happy about."


and some opt out options you can talk to your school about. Link here:
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:37200