LETS TAX THE KIDS COLLEGE EDUCATION

 

I have two grandson’s graduating high school this year. I had established for each of my grand kids when they were young, an educational account in mutual funds that can be drawn upon when the kids reach college age. Something manageable, putting a little bit of money aside as they were growing up. They can draw on them only for college or vocational or other accredited schools. It can be used to pay for tuition, books and a defined number of other college related expenses without having to pay taxes on the earnings. A sound idea. If they had graduated in 2010, everything would have been fine. But, its 2011.  Our wonderful congress has slipped in a little grabber. Van Guard wrote me a letter informing me they will no longer be accepting new educational accounts. Van Guard suggested I should change them to another type of account, a 526, whatever that is. The other fund companies just gave me the bad news.  It seems congress has decided taxes must now be paid on the earnings these accounts made when they are withdrawn. 

Gee, our wonderful congress has to balance the budget and reduce the deficit. Did you notice when the government investigation report of the banking and mortgage failure came out, it concluded there are guilty parties and the whole melt down was preventable and that laws were broken? Did you notice not one congress person decided we should go after the guilty parties and hold them accountable? No one was fined for slurping up billions of illegally gained dollars at taxpayers expense?  But, shucks, lets to go after those juicy educational accounts that are benefiting our students now that the economy of the world was affected negatively by these bozos and we are buried in debt, and trying to crawl out of it.

It makes me so angry I want to reiterate that old saw- THROW THE BUMS OUT.
House rules should dictate that every congress person should have to publically declare who gave them or their campaign committee money, or any promises, or deals made concerning the passing of a bill, while connected to a lie detector, before they are allowed to vote. This is not the type of ugliness any of us imagined could happen in America. Its so sad.

Preventable, that’s what gets me. This mess was preventable.