Greasy
politicians use education funds to enrich corporations — and themselves.
Betsy
DeVos and her husband Dick are lucky: They inherited a big chunk of the
multi-billion-dollar fortune that Dick’s dad Richard amassed through his shady
Amway corporation. But what they’ve done with their Amway money is certainly
not the American Way.
The
DeVos couple are part of the Koch brothers’ coterie, pushing plutocratic
policies that reject our country’s one-for-all, all-for-one egalitarianism.
In
particular, Betsy DeVos has spent years and millions of dollars spreading the
right wing’s ideological nonsense that our tax dollars should subsidize private
schools — even ones exclude people of color and the poor, as well as to
profiteering schools known to cheat students and taxpayers.
Bizarrely,
Donald Trump chose this vehement opponent of public education to head the
agency in charge of — guess what — public education. Rather than working to
help improve our public schools, the Trump-DeVos duo wants to take $20 billion from their federal
funding and give it to corporate chains.
ACSTO
also pays millions of dollars to another for-profit corporation named HY
Processing to handle administrative chores. The “Y” in HY stands for
Yarborough.
And
ACSTO pays $52,000 a year in rent to its landlord — Steve Yarborough.
As
Wall Street banksters, drug company gougers, airline fee fixers, and so many
others have taught us over and over, most corporate executives are paid big
bucks to take every shortcut to cheat and do whatever to squeeze out another
dime in profits.
Why
would we entrust our school children to them?
OtherWords
columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. Distributed by OtherWords.org.