The Tribune Editorial Board was right on the mark with the editorial on for-profit colleges (“Time to clean up the for-profit college hustle,” Dec. 27). Providing additional federal funds to for-profit colleges — through Build Back Better’s large Pell grant increase — makes no sense when you consider the industry’s long track record of predatory practices and poor student outcomes. Despite enrolling just 8% of all postsecondary students, the for-profit college industry is responsible for 30% of all federal student loan defaults.
For-profit college executives and shareholders getting rich off of saddling students with unsurmountable debt in exchange for a worthless degree is a business model that the federal government shouldn’t support. That’s why I support that the provision in the Build Back Better Act that would protect traditionally underserved and marginalized students while preventing additional taxpayer dollars from being wasted on these miserable institutions.
I’ll fight to ensure that any final bill includes this important provision. Now is the time to finally hold for-profit schools accountable for the damage they have done.
— U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
New era of accountability
The guilty verdicts against the former officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright and the murderer of George Floyd are cause for hope that a new era of accountability is dawning for police officers.
It cannot be emphasized enough that police work is dangerous and that those who serve are individuals of bravery. Most officers are in the profession to serve all members of the community.
It should also be stressed that an individual who is told to obey a police command should do it without question, but failure to comply should not provide the officer the ability to serve as judge, jury and executioner.
We entrust police officers to enforce the law and to tote lethal weapons in our name. When they fail us, they must be punished.
— Oren Spiegler, Peters Township, Pennsylvania
The crowding at airports
It seems that Steve Chapmen has not been to an airport recently and seen the security lines and crowds (“Dr. Fauci is wrong to encourage a vaccine mandate for domestic air travelers,” Dec. 30).
No social distancing there.
Even if risk of infection on the plane is low, the contact risk at all stages from entry to exit of the airport must be weighed.
Various books have dramatized the spread of disease by having a few travelers on a plane spread it to a few others on the plane, who in turn travel with hundreds of others and so on to all parts of the globe.
— Earl Weiss, Chicago
Building owners’ plight
At what point, exactly, do rent assistance, free rent or eviction bans end? How many folks who sank their savings into buildings have to go under, with a shrug by the politicians? How is it that practically every business I enter has a hiring sign, yet all I hear is nobody on rent assistance can find a job?
Where is the disconnect?
— Pat McMillan, Robinson
Ex-Treasury secretary’s take
On the topic of the proposed $1.9 trillion Build Back Better legislation, a recent letter writer wrote, “Spending trillions of dollars more will only serve to increase the rate of inflation. Continuing to spend trillions can’t continue without eventually devaluing the dollar. We are headed for financial disaster unless Congress has the will to stop this fiscal lunacy” (“Spending trillions not a fix,” Dec. 26).
I fully acknowledge that I have little understanding of economics in general, including what does or does not impact inflation. In a search, I came upon the writings of Lawrence Summers, an American economist who served as the 71st U.S. secretary of the Treasury Department and as the eighth director of the National Economic Council. Summers is a former president of Harvard University, where he is currently a professor and director at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has criticized the current administration for not acting against inflation sooner.
But with regards to the proposed Build Back Better legislation, Summers wrote, “The legislation would spend less over 10 years than was spent on stimulus in 2021. Because that spending is offset by revenue increases and because it includes measures such as child care that will increase the economy’s capacity, Build Back Better will have only a negligible impact on inflation.”
With respect to the letter writer, I am placing my trust in Summers’ bona fides.
— Ron Coppel, Schaumburg
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