Wick Sloane ‘76 wants to raise taxes on Williams.

Until the end of the Iraq war, eliminate tax deductions for new campus construction. Institutions are free to raise money and build away. I am only shifting the tax policy. How can we reconcile tax-deducted student centers with U.S. troops, the same age as college students, in Afghanistan and Iraq sleeping outdoors and eating meals out of plastic MRE bags? And being shot at.

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For the hearings, when higher education piles in to tell you the U.S. economy will crumble with any shift in tax policy, do swear in the witnesses, for form if not for necessity. The trustees set the fiscal decisions. Invite, for example, Burton McMurtry, the chair at Stanford, Nordahl Bruce from Grinnell, James Houghton from Harvard, Jide Zeitlin from Amherst, Robert Lipp from Williams, Stephen Oxman from Princeton, Thomas Tisch from Brown, and Stanley Gold from University of Southern California. Your ambrosial lagniappe for this hearing, Senators, is the Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation, Roland Betts, lifelong friend of President Bush. The Michael Brown or the Socrates of education? Trustees are the people to explain to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and to community college students why a tax deduction for a fitness center is more important than more Pell Grants. Let these chairs explain why all the tax policies should stand when the total G.I. Bill benefits of $50,000 wouldn’t pay for a single year, including books, pocket money, and travel, at their colleges, let alone four years.

See the link for details. Wick’s heart is in the right place, but the whole idea that you can easily tax different categories of higher education spending is ridiculous. Was renovating Mission Park new construction or maintenance? How about Stetson?

Once you declare certain parts of the economy to be tax free, it becomes very hard to tax some of what it does but not other parts. Now, if Wick wanted to talk real reform, he would get rid of non-tax-paying organizations all together. If University of Phoenix has to pay taxes, why shouldn’t Williams?