UT President DiPietro Shouldn't Be Asking Alumni to Lobby Their Senators Against Tax Reform

For a little context, this evening I received an email from the President of the University of Tennessee asking alumni to lobby their senators because, boo-hoo, the university might loose some cushy tax loopholes in the changes to the tax code the house passed this week. I encourage all Tennesseans to look objectively at how these changes will affect higher education and decide for themselves. My response to DiPietro, who you can contact at president@tennessee.edu, is below.

Mr. DiPietro,

I'm disappointed you would use your access the UT Alumni list to express partisan opinions. That said, I'm glad you pointed these things out because now I have more reasons to like the new tax bill:

1). I've never qualified for anything more than the standard deduction and I put two kids through college at the same time, so why should I care about some rich folks losing a deduction?

2). The decline in charitable donations is your own fault for doing NOTHING to stem the tide of the increase of the cost of higher education while expanding the roles to put more people into debt for decades paying off their student loans. They're already writing a check to UT every month; why would they want to write a second one in the name of "charity"?

3). College athletics have become a disgrace to institutions of higher learning and anything that can be done to dissociate the two is a step in the right direction.

If you really cared about the students you'd be working to lower the cost of education and protect them from the rapists on the football team rather than trying to get alumni to fatten your coffers by lobbying senators.

Sincerely,
Bradley Wogsland
MS Physics '06