01-10-2018, 02:16 AM
Quote:That gets to the real explanation for this seemingly pointless new levy. As thoughtful proponents of the endowment tax explained off the record, they want to use fiscal policy to punish people with views they don’t like. In particular, they object to what they see as the “noxious, unflinching left-liberal ideology” promoted by places such as Yale, Princeton, and, apparently, CalTech. (What exactly makes this “ideology” so “noxious” was unspecified but it seems to include the notion that homosexuals should be treated equally under the law.) The new tax, for them, is merely the thin end of the wedge leading to full government regulation of higher education. The longer-term goal is to use state power to purge “socially harmful” ideas, perhaps along the lines of the Hungarian government’s campaign against the Central European University. The brief history of the tax bill makes it clear that elite universities were targeted because of their perceived position in the culture wars, rather than any principled belief about how best to fund the government.The tax on university endowments is anti-intellectualism and cultural resentment masquerading as fiscal policy | FT Alphaville