The recent revelation that Lunar New Year Festival was allocated $5,500 by Student Union for a fireworks display has enraged many students. Criticisms leveled against LNYF and Student Union were that the spending was wasteful, that SU privileges cultural groups over all others and that $5,500 was an obscene amount of money to be spent on an event.

Student Union Treasury voted to allocate $105,569 to bring John Legend, Sofia Vergara and Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School and author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, to campus in a meeting flooded by about 100 students Tuesday night.

The proposed Student Union budget for 2011-2012 will be presented to Senate and Treasury on Wednesday for a vote. The joint SU session will be held in Simon Hall at 9 p.m. and will be open to all students.

Last Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee announced in a press release that it would cut $327 million worth of federal funding for Title X, a resolution that the House of Representatives is expected to vote on next week.

The results of the stimulus bill are still being felt at Washington University and the surrounding region. Renewable fuel research in St. Louis got a big boost in mid-January when it was announced that the area would receive millions of dollars in stimulus money.

Metro’s service cutbacks may have gone into effect, but that’s not stopping a number of Washington University students and administrators from continuing to advocate funding for the transit agency.

With students applying for federal financial aid assistance in record numbers this year, the financial fate of college students may be impacted by who the next president of the United States will be.