Poverty Politics

This is ironic. John Edwards goes to the University of California at Davis to give a speech at this state funded school. His topic is "Poverty, the Great Moral issue Facing America." His negotiated fee for this speech amounts to $31 per person - about $55,000 for the speech. And this university is going to raise tuition rates for the next school year by about seven percent.

This would not be so obscene except that Edwards proposed that 'every financial barrier' be removed from American students who want to go to college. This has been one of his campaign pledges.

Since Poverty was Edwards' topic, shouldn't he have done the speech for free, and help to relieve the financial burden of the students? That additional $55K could have been used to provide additional scholarships for deserving students so they, too, can climb out of poverty. Who knows? Maybe one of the deserving students will become a personal injury trial lawyer and become rich by winning lawsuits that place additional burdens on the rest of society just like Edwards did.