Although it is completely reasonable that students are upset that the money that was promised to them for higher education was taken away, we should have seen this coming; it should serve as a lesson to be wary of any government promise.
When a country is funded by debt and money is printed to pay for this debt, prices rise due to inflation and the burden is placed on the taxpayers, making it harder to afford things like tuition.
Hence, the state comes to the rescue with the Michigan Promise. Our state government is stretched so thin by promises made to special interests that help the few and hurt everybody else; cutting the “promise” should almost be looked at as a sign of progress… until we look at how much money could be saved in other areas so that educational funding could be saved.
With all of the incessant bickering that occurs between parties on what should be done to help us, maybe they should be ignored and we should start helping ourselves. As the ongoing debate rages on about how to fund and administer services like health care and education, look to these seven principles of public policy as told by Lawrence W. Reed (Mackinac Center for Public Policy) to guide the way:
1. Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
2. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of;
what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
3. Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
4. If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
5. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
6. Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you’ve got.
7. Liberty makes all the difference in the world.
