Good day all. If you enjoy watching Progressive Liberal groups eat each other, then you will love this post. Connecticut, a deep blue Moonbat state is home to Yale University, a deep blue moonbat university.
Yale, like all collages and universities, has a large pool of money called an endowment. These are usually funds donated over the, in the case of Yale, centuries that the university then invests. Traditionally, these endowments are tax free, and they may have billions of dollars in them. Connecticut, like all Democrat run states, has a gaping hole in their budget. They’ve taxed everyone into oblivion and now they are looking for other sources they can loot. Someone remembered the Yale endowments and started drooling over that pool of cash. Yale, obviously, thinks taxing them is a stupid idea. Here are the amusing details of this fight from Bloomberg:
Yale University’s endowment earned $2.6 billion in investment gains in fiscal 2015. A proposed bill in the Ivy League school’s home state of Connecticut is eyeing a share of the bounty as a source of revenue. Schools with funds of $10 billion or more — affecting Yale only — could face a tax on endowment income, according to legislation introduced this month. Yale’s record $25.6 billion fund is the second largest in U.S. higher education, behind Harvard University’s $37.6 billion.
Harvard University is in Massachusetts, another state that considers that your money is actually the states, and they are nice enough to let you have some. You can bet your bottom dollar that if Connecticut loots Yale, the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is going to go “a-Viking” with Harvard in their greedy sights.
The richest college endowments, many at their highest values ever, also have drawn scrutiny from federal lawmakers. Last month, the U.S. Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees sent a joint inquiry to the richest 56 private schools about endowments, seeking to understand the impact of their tax-exempt status on the price tag of higher education, among other issues.
And to that I say, it’s about time! Harvard charges a huge amount in tuition to students attending, and frankly, with the exception of the medical school, it’s a pretty mediocre education. Pretty much the only reason to go to Harvard, Yale, or any of the Ivy League schools is for the contacts and snob value. They certainly aren’t worth what they charge, and frankly, they could pay for the education of every student right through medical school out of their endowment, and barely dent it.
Connecticut is facing a $266 million shortfall for fiscal 2016, according to the state Office of Fiscal Analysis, and taxing the endowment’s earnings could help close the gap.
Please! Yale could pay that out of petty cash.
Supporters of the bill want Yale to spend more money to expand access to higher education and “create innovative, high-paying jobs,” Martin Looney, a Democrat who presides over the Senate and whose district includes Yale’s campus in New Haven, said in written testimony submitted for a committee hearing on March 22.
That munching sound is Liberals eating each other. I especially like the idea that Yale must create “Innovative, High paying jobs.” Do you have any idea what a tenured professor makes there in pay and benefits? Looney huh? I think he may want to consider legally changing his name.
“It is our hope that these rich schools can use their wealth to create job opportunities, rather than simply to get richer,” Looney said, adding that Yale “possesses the resources to have an even greater impact on our economy.”
I looked up Senator Looneytunes. He did not attend Yale. I suspect he couldn’t get in. Probably didn’t have the right connections or ethnic background or something. He certainly hasn’t figured out that a University’s primary job, besides caving in to the latest in Social Justice Warrior causes, is to educate people so they can go out and get those high paying jobs. But then he is a Progressive Liberal Fascist Democrat.
Yale and the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce urged legislators to reject the bill.
Big surprise that.
Yale currently makes a voluntary payment to New Haven of more than $8.2 million annually, according to the school.
But that isn’t $266 million to the State. The State government wants their share, and their share should be almost all of it. And $8.2 million? That’s about one week’s interest on Yale’s billions. Chump change in other words.
Richard Jacob, the school’s associate vice president for federal and state relations, said in written testimony that the bill and a second one that would tax college property are a “specific attack on higher education.”
Oh, they’re going to make them pay property taxes too? Well, there goes the neighborhood. Just think of all that property Yale has purchased over the years, property that was subject to taxation, that now…isn’t. I think that if Yale had to pay property taxes, New Haven would be seeing a lot morer money coming in then that lousy $8 million they get now.
“The proposed taxes on Yale would diminish the university’s ability to carry out its charitable mission and to enable and support growth in New Haven,” Jacob wrote. “Yale’s generous financial aid policies, which enable Yale College students to avoid any loans, and which waive any parent contribution for low-income students, exist because of the endowment.”
Yale is another university that could pretty much pay for the entire education of it’s student body. As to “support growth in New Haven,” basically they are trying to buy the entire city. With each acquisition, the tax base in New Haven drops, causing the remaining taxable properties to be taxed at a greater rate to pay for police, fire and infrastructure. Since people and businesses can’t afford the taxes, they sell their property to…Yale. Do we see a problem here?
These universities are sitting on several hundred billion dollars and, lets be honest, have no real interest in actually using it to educate people. Instead, these “Snobatoriums” use these funds to build their little lefty empires. I say tax them and let them see how the other 9/10th of the population lives.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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The Democrat War on Higher Education. Has a nice ring to it, no? Unfortunately, they’ll likely 86 this Good Intention™ themselves long before we get a chance to pop the first tankful of popcorn.