Why Throw Good Monet at Bad People?
Education is Not for Everyone!

Sick and tired of middle-class freeloaders earning college degrees with public funding? Fed up with the children of janitors competing with our blueblooded babies in the classroom? Join Billionaires for Bush and our pampered sons and daughters around the country to celebrate all President Bush has done to transform education from a public “right” into the exclusive privilege of the elite!

On September 20, we will hold campus tea parties, ceremonially privatize public schools, and recruit low-wage workers from high schools and colleges. We will scoff at John Kerry’s proposed reductions in tuition and adequate funding for public education, which he plans to fund by repealing part of Bush's Billionaire tax cut. We will show America what Bush has known for a long time: education is not for everyone.

In his first term, George W. Bush has worked hard to widen the education gap:

• Under-funding his own education reform program. After passing “No Child Left Behind,” Bush under-funded the program by a total of $27 billion in his last four budgets, and $9.4 billion in his last budget alone. That's more money for military contracts in Iraq!
  
  
• Overseeing a massive increase in the cost of university tuition. Under Bush, public university tuition has gone up, with an increase of 14%, or twice the rate of inflation, in just the last year and similar increases predicted in the years to come. These increases make four-year university programs inaccessible to half of the country’s college-eligible high school graduates, leaving them little choice but to take low-paying jobs in our companies!
  
  
• Initiating a proposed 40% cut to funding for afterschool programs in his last budget, which would eliminate afterschool for roughly 500,000 kids. After all, who needs afterschool programs when you can hire an au pair?
  
  
• Proposing cuts to Pell Grant funding. After promising to increase first-year grants to a $5,100 maximum, Bush did precisely the reverse in his 2005 budget, capping the grants at $4,050. Bush understands that free money is only for those with corporate lobbyists, and we expect him to cap the grants at $0 in his second term.
  
  
• Allowing banks to make up to $12 billion annually at taxpayer expense from student loans. With a loophole that guarantees an above-market interest rate on student loans, the government sends extra money directly to bankers — the people who need it.

Interested in participating? Contact our National Campus Coordinator, Mona Polist, at mona.polist@billionairesforbush.com. For materials and more information, visit: http://www.billionairesforbush.com/education.php

CHEAP LABOR DAY A BIG HIT WITH BILLIONAIRES

Our most recent National Day of Action was celebrated in over a dozen cities nationwide. From Toledo to Tucson, Billionaires added a colorful presence to Labor Day gatherings -- sometimes infiltrating parades, frequently heckling them.

The Denver Billionaires formed their own little marching band, chanting “No Minimum Wage, No Minimum Age!” accompanied by a snare drum. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Billionaires welcomed Dick Cheney at the State Fair, and the brand-new Chicago chapter took this occasion to come out from behind limo doors for the first time. The Cleveland Billionaires staged multiple actions. They were at so many campaign stops it was a multi-day Cheap Labor Festival! Read all about it here: http://www.cleveb4b.com

Huzzah! to all the Billionaire chapters who participated. If you held an action but don’t see your chapter below, it’s because you’re not showing off enough! Share your stories from the street — post reports about your actions at: http://www.billionairesforbush.com/blog

Billionaires in these cities know how to celebrate CHEAP Labor: Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Tucson, Cleveland, Chicago, Kenosha, Toledo, SFO Bay Area, Portland, Ann Arbor, Lancaster, Denver, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and New York.