The Truth About the Illinois MAP Grant

First, I want to commend those of you who have stepped outside of your comfort zone and have worked with a student organizations, called congressmen, and organized efforts to restore the MAP Grant. Involvement with the political process is an essential part of being a good citizen and keeping politicians in check.

Now, as far as the MAP Grant is concerned. Is it really in Jeopardy? I believe that, no, it is not actually in jeopardy. No matter what we do, the MAP Grant will be restored by this spring, so please don’t fret too much.

That does not mean that all your efforts to ‘Restore the MAP Grant’ are going to waste. First let me explain why the MAP Grant was cut:

(1) Illinois has a $32.9 billion budget, yet we have an estimated $3-$7 billion deficit. Some economists (Keynesian School) believe this is good because spending that extra money will help the economy – they propose we expand the deficit. Some economists (Austrian/Chicago School), and most citizens are concerned about the long term impact of such deficit spending, and they want to close the gap.

(2) Most politicians want to appease the “shrink the deficit crowd” so they are fighting over how to do so. The conservatives are posturing themselves as “cut wasteful spending out of the budget” side of the debate. They have a point. We don’t have spending controls on our state budget and we don’t really have mechanisms to review if our money is being used properly (that goes for University spending as well, which has caused tuition rates to skyrocket). However, most legislators are unwilling to cut pet projects out of the budget that benefit their home districts or constituencies.

(3) On the liberal side of the debate, the call has been to raise taxes. However, raising taxes is pretty unpopular, and most legislators don’t want to face a difficult reelection battle if they vote in favor of raising taxes. So, there has been a stalemate in the IL Congress.

(4) Over the summer, a budget was passed which did NOT include tax increases. It did not close the deficit by enough, and it cut social spending in areas that Gov. Quinn found unacceptable. He vetoed the bill and said he would not sign a bill that did not include tax increases.

(5) The legislature did not have a good enough “excuse” to increase taxes – so this is where your MAP Grant came into play: They decided to cut it by 50% ($200 million) and use this as bait to get the people to demand it back and be willing to accept “whatever means necessary” was used to do so. Everyone knows that if they cut the MAP Grant for good they would be in political jeopardy, so no one actually truly intended to cut the MAP Grant for good. It is just a game they’re playing.

(6) That is why the MAP Grant was only reduced in the Spring 2010 semester to zero, and not cut at all in the Fall. This way no one gets hurt, but now we have a “ticking time bomb” that will force people to act quickly to organize and mobilize to bring back the MAP Grant.

(7) The political trick is that now instead of the debate being “wasteful spending vs. tax increases” they have changed the debate to “MAP Grant vs. tax increases” – and since so many people love the MAP Grant so much, now they have an energized group of people who will lobby for the Governor’s proposed tax increases and now everyone has an excuse to raise taxes and won’t suffer political harm for it. They can say, “We were just doing what the people wanted!”

(8) Here’s my challenge to you: Lobby for the MAP Grant to come back, but don’t lose sight of the REAL issues at stake here. Illinois needs to adopt budget controls so that our spending doesn’t get out of control. Illinois needs to review the effectiveness of their spending and cut major sections of pork out of the budget. Tax increases may or may not be necessary, but on their own they are no solution to anything (and in my opinion enable and reward wasteful spending rather than help curb it, so are more of a bad thing at this point).

FINAL POINT: It is pointless to lobby to bring back the MAP Grant if that’s where the story ends. If we don’t fix the problems that led to our politicians using the MAP Grant against us, then in a few years, they’re just going to pull the same old tricks on us, and take something out of the budget we are unwilling to part with as a means of getting us to line up behind what THEY think is best state of Illinois rather than what the PEOPLE think is best.