Atrios References The PACT Program ::

I followed a couple of links on Eschaton this morning and one of them led to a Left In Alabama post about the PACT fiasco, but the other link was to a local blog titled "Havealittletalk". Havealittletalk seems to be devoted to what is happening with the PACT fund, but I found the Atrios link to be very interesting in that it takes The Huntsville Times and, more specifically, David Prather to task for shoddy writing. Here are a couple of excerpts:

In his article “The PACT Meltdown” (Huntsville Times 3-5-09), David Prather compares the predicament of those of us who invested in the PACT to homebuyers who failed to read the “fine print” on their mortgages and then blame “the mortgage banker who didn’t tell you that your income didn’t make buying that house on a variable interest rate a really sound business decision on your part.” He concludes, “Some folks don’t have much sympathy for those who have overextended themselves in home-buying. Perhaps they will feel the same about those who invested in the tuition savings plans in hopes of making the cost of sending their children to college manageable.”
His analogy and editorializing is both inaccurate and insulting.

[snip]

Unlike Mr. Prather, Stan Diel of The Birmingham News did his homework, reporting in “State fears investors will pull money out of PACT” (3-7-09) that “Many participants in the program were under the impression that their contracts guaranteed tuition would be paid in full if they made their payments. And contracts from the program’s inception in 1990 through 1994 explicitly promise that would be the case.” He adds, “The word ‘guarantee’ was removed for later contracts.”

My daughter’s MasterPACT for enrollment period September 1-September 30, 1996 states in para 3.01: “The PACT Program provides payment of undergraduate Instate Tuition and Mandatory Fees on behalf of the Qualified Beneficiary…” (emphasis added). I’ve read the “fine print” of this 1996 MasterPact, which is a contract, and while “guarantees” has been replaced by “provides,” the only “Disclaimers” [para 10.06] pertain to no “guarantee” that the beneficiary “(a) will be admitted to a Postsecondary Institution…(d) will be graduated from a Postsecondary Institution.” There is no disclaimer regarding poor money management by the State.

Let me say upfront that I have exchanged a couple of testy e-mails with the thin-skinned David Prather about what I felt was his shilling for the city of Huntsville government over true reporting on a couple of stories which never got the ink they deserved. Prather took great umbrage at my pointing out, in detail, the major points he and a couple of other reporters had missed or, more pointedly, ignored in their writing.

We look forward to more fireworks regarding Alabama's PACT program, but I surely would not look to the Huntsville Times for factual reporting.