Jeffrey Sachs bills himself this way: "Economist; professor and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University; Special Advisor to the UN Secretery-General; author, 'The Price of Civilization'". With a resume like that you would think that he could at least check his facts (or tell the truth). But no, he can't. A few days ago, the progressive Mr. Sachs wrote a piece on the Huffington Post in which he claimed that spending cuts were unnecessary and the higher taxes were the answer to every need in America. Sachs said that there are two economies and the those without a college degree suffer badly. To make his point that spending cuts were the wrong thing to do, Sachs argued at length about how terrible the cuts in federal Pell grants have been. The poor are ever less likely to be able to afford college as a result according to Sachs.
The problem is that Pell grants have not been cut. Indeed, when the debt ceiling compromise was reached last August, Republicans and Democrats agreed to raise spending on Pell grants by 17 billion dollars. Pell grants were the only program of the federal government for which spending was increased as part of that deal. Over the last decade, Pell grants have gotten larger and larger. In short, Sachs either does not know what he is talking about or he is intentionally lying.
I will give Sachs to benefit of the doubt and say that he is merely incompetent. Indeed, one has to wonder what advice Sachs is giving to the Secretary General of the UN. Of course, given how well the UN functions, the quality of Sachs' advice may not matter. The truth, however, is that one often needs to look at what these so called experts are saying to see if they are even close to being correct. Just because someone has a title of professor, that does not make him or her correct.
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