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Chuck Johnson's Lawyer Responds to Gawker's Lawyers: Please Have Pity on Me, Judge

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sagehen10/13/2015 10:34:57 pm PDT

re: #51 freetoken

Still, trying to present “free college” as some noble thought rather than what it is - a means to buy votes from young people - I find disingenuous.

Bull. Shit.

My parents grew up super poor. Like, cardboard in their shoes because they couldn’t afford to have them resoled kind of poor. Ketchup soup. Dad joined the Army at age 15 because they promised they’d feed him Every. Single. Day.

But City College was 100% taxpayer-funded, students paid zero tuition. Hunter College was mostly taxpayer-funded, with some philanthropic top-off. Students paid zero tuition.

Any money they could put together from after-school jobs, summer jobs, Dad’s GI benefits, could be applied to grad school.

When he got his MD, he had zero debt, mom had been working for a couple of years by then. When they moved across the country for his internship and residency, they had enough cash to buy a car to get there, rent a home where Mom could stay home with toddler children. The day he finished his training and went into private practice, they could immediately start saving up for a down-payment on a house, sending one of dad’s little brothers to a private college and med school and his other brother and my mom to law school…

The 40 years of income tax they paid (in the highest bracket) was more than enough to reimburse the govt for having invested in them. Plus, y’know, there’s value to the world that smart kids from poor families could be doctors and lawyers instead of secretaries and construction workers.

The nation got their money’s worth.