⚠️ SATIRE DISCLAIMER (NOW 25% SMALLER THANKS TO BUDGET CUTS):

This is a fictional stage rant in the unmistakable voice of George Carlin, written as political satire. If you're the kind of person who thinks “access to education” is some kind of communist plot, maybe close this tab and go read your bank statement out loud until the numbers stop hurting your feelings.📰
 
🎤 [George stomps onstage, already pissed.]
TRIO and GEAR UP.
Programs designed to help kids get to college. You know—first-gen students, low-income families, people who don’t have trust funds and a cousin at Yale.
The kids who actually need a hand because life didn’t deal them four aces and a grandfather with a courthouse named after him.
So naturally—naturally—the administration decides to kill ‘em.
Why?
Because the budget’s too tight!
Because these programs are “ineffective”!
Because apparently giving poor kids tutors and guidance counselors is somehow more wasteful than, say, a fucking $2.4 trillion billionaire tax cut.
Oh, and let’s not forget the Queen of the Calculator herself: Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
You know, from WWE to the Department of Education—because those skill sets translate seamlessly.
She shows up to a Senate hearing and gets asked how much has been spent on TRIO over ten years.
And someone says a trillion dollars.
A TRILLION. With a T.
You know what she says?
NOTHING.
She just lets it hang there, like a fart in church.
No correction, no math.
She just goes, “Yup, sounds expensive.”
Spoiler alert, Linda—
$1.5 billion a year times 10 is $15 billion.
You know who could’ve helped her with that?
Someone in TRIO.
A low-income student with a fucking calculator and a brain.
But they want to cancel that kid.
Cut the Pell Grant. Slash support services.
Tell these students, “Hey, if you can’t bootstrap your way through college, you didn’t want it bad enough.”
Meanwhile, every damn Ivy League legacy brat gets a head start, a letter of recommendation, and a family endowment the size of Nebraska.
This isn’t fiscal policy.
This is sabotage with a budget sheet.
They don’t want people getting educated.
They want them desperate.
They want ‘em clocked in, worn down, underpaid, and grateful for crumbs.
Because an educated, self-aware population?
Terrifies the shit out of these bastards.
George out.
And Linda?
Next time you try to kill a program for kids who want to learn math—
maybe learn to do it yourself first.