Posted on 04/25/2019 5:41:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
It’s the greatest crisis facing the country today and threatens not only the present, but the future as well. It’s not the national debt, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, health care, or any of the other issues Democratic candidates for president routinely ramble about, no. This is something far more serious – people making informed, really bad choices. And the Democratic Party is rallying to their defense.
Out of pure self-loathing, I watched most of the 5-hour lovefest on CNN Monday with Democratic candidates for president. One hour each for Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. These back-to-back town halls featured pre-selected questions from a screened audience of college students looking to government to solve their problems. Of course, government can’t solve your problems, especially when your biggest problem is looking to government to solve your problems.
Still, it was a look not only into the minds of the candidates, it was a look into the minds of people who, someday, will be in elected office themselves. It was scary.
A day after more than 300 people were killed in a terrorist attack because of their faith, I don’t remember a single question or statement from anyone about it. There were, however, a lot of questions about student loans.
Judging by the amount of coverage student loan debt has gotten this year, you’d think there were loan officers hiding in bushes outside of high schools waiting to jump out and force college bound seniors to sign their lives away to big banks.
That’s not happening, of course, students are signing those documents willingly after actively seeking out loans for college. But you’d never know it by the way the candidates talk about student loans.
The issue isn’t so much an issue as it is an opportunity to pander. Candidates dangle varying versions of loan forgiveness and “free” college to students with more debt than many companies as a way to buy votes. It’s also a way for Democrats to advance an idea that is at the core of progressive politics: no personal responsibility.
So much of what Democrats are pushing this year is designed to insulate people from the bad choices they make – don’t worry about consequences, government is here to “fix” it. It’s the “let mommy kiss your booboo” of 2020.
Nothing captures this attitude like student loan forgiveness. Fully informed people making bad choices to borrow more money than their education will ever be worth, flocking to politicians promising to make it all better.
Rather than stealing from taxpayers to absolve people of their bad decisions, here’s an alternative that will serve the much more important purpose of teaching future generations about responsibility: tell the truth.
One questioner at Monday’s CNN event asked what can be done for her. According to her question, she’d amassed $25,000 in loans for just her freshman year of undergraduate studies at Saint Anselm College, which cost $38,000 per year in 2017. Rather than pander to someone like this girl, all candidates, and all Americans, should ask her why in the hell she chose to attend such an expensive school. Ask what undergraduate degree she thought could justify such a move. These people need to be taught that a degree in interpretive dance or 1940s bisexual polar bear studies might make you super-woke in your Young Socialists of America drum circle, but they aren’t viable for future employment.
Additionally, every student with a complaint about student debt should be asked the following:
1. Why go to an expensive school if you can’t afford it without taking on massive debt?
2. Why would your parents allow you to choose a school if you have to take on upwards of $100,000 in loans?
3. Do you understand the concept of a loan?
Knowing those questions had to have gone through their heads at some point, they should then be asked why they should be absolved of their debts when they willingly and knowingly made bad decisions?
They won’t have an answer, at least not a good one.
Candidates should pat them on the back, tell them they’re sorry but there’s nothing they can do for them. Not everyone is meant to lead a life of example, some people serve as cautionary tales – so let it be with these people.
Future generations can learn from the high self-esteem, snowflake generation whose parents should have but didn’t tell them “no,” so they can avoid their mistakes. Unless you’re going to be roommates with the next Mark Zuckerberg, no undergraduate education is worth $100,000 or more in debt. If you can’t pay for it with savings, scholarships, grants, and some moderate amount of loans, don’t go to that school. There are other options.
There should be no student loan forgiveness. It’ll be a tough lesson for kids to learn, but it’s one they need. Their parents failed them, their guidance counselors failed them, and they failed themselves. Let a group of liberal billionaires step-up, put their money where their mouths are and help, but don’t force an autoworker in Michigan or farmer in Wisconsin who’s helping their kid work their way through a state school or commuter college do it.
Choices have consequences, especially bad ones. At least they should. Government is supposed to protect people’s rights, not from themselves. And certainly not at the expense of everyone else. Let these people serve as an example of what not to do. It won’t help them, but it’ll do wonders for the next generation.
Industrialized agriculture has robbed us of the best training school for young people, the family farm.
There are a couple of paths to “loan forgiveness”. One is to volunteer for service in the US military, and depending on the number of years served, the loan is reduced proportionately by that much. Another is to go into what is considered “community service”, as a teacher, or some kind of functionary that serves a vital purpose in the administration of a state or local government (not Federal), for again the number of years served being used to proportionately reduce the loan balance. A similar internship could be served with private industry, on arrangement with the loan agency.
Now, some would say this is an indenture, and if fact, it IS. But simple indenture is NOT the same as involuntary servitude, slavery, and should be clearly distinguished from the onset.
Once you make a deal with the Devil, the Devil owns you, until you deliver on the terms of the original agreement.
Who gets to own you first? “Live Free or Die” is not just a slogan, you know.
Just one comment on why some of the Democrat talking points are unsuccessful. I just want to point it out on one issue: climate change. According to everything I’ve read, this issue is near the bottom of the list on most people’s concerns & OFF the bottom of the list for many. Yet, in the campaign speeches I bet they will pick on this one a fair amount. I think they would have more luck picking on the important issues of the day, but ONLY if they really have a workable plan to solve a certain issue. Generally speaking, I don’t see that the Democrats do have many workable plans. Merely throwing more money at something is not a “workable plan”.
Make the schools back the loans instead of all this endless free money that comes their way. They need to have skin in the game.
Pretty much my entire point. Now that we know there is no reason whatsoever to ever again allow the “peaceful transfer of power” why in the hell would we allow it?
So you would suggest loan forgiveness by allowing a person in debt to have it absolved by being a “community organizer” in Rat enclaves?
My youngest went to a community college where he was offered a paid internship. Graduated cum lauda, moved right into an $80,000 per year trade at 20. He’s 21 and an MVP at his place of work where he has gold plated benefits making his actual income north of $100,000. Now they are looking at him for a leadership roll in his department. Bottom line: better to be a big fish in a small pond then a minnow in a very expensive pond you can’t afford.
P.S. work ethic is still a major factor in success in this country. So few have, the ones that do excel.
1. No further student loans except for STEM majors.
2. Allow current folks under student loans to discharge them through bankruptcy.
3. Allow institutions that hold those loans to attempt to recoup their losses by suing colleges and universities.
“get the Federal government the hell out of the college financing business”
Thank you for the first conservative post to this pitiful diatribe.
This is another government created crisis. The same government that provides a public education that intentionally excludes financial literacy. Government loans have exponentially inflated education while society has played along pretending that college is still providing some benefit.
By definition, true education is elitist. Its worth declines in direct proportion to its prevalence. Like the Incredible’s movie said, “if everyone’s Super; no one is.”
The average student debt is around $40,000 - the cost of a BMW. If the recent college grads think of it that way, there’s no problem.
In addition, universities spend unexplainable sums on administration, especially on social administration, as well as big salaries for researchers/professors in social/political fields. Tuition could be cut 30% by just eliminating that.
Note, that this can also apply retroactively!
Solution: Get a job and pay your debts so the rest of us tax payers don’t have to pay them for you.
“There should be no student loan forgiveness.”
Every dime of student loan forgiveness should be born by the schools themselves, every dime!
Force those liberal bastards to fire the worthless Profs that make $300K a year for teaching a couple days a month.
Cut pork and the fluff and college debt could be reduced to a manageable 10K or less a year.
“There should be no student loan forgiveness.”
Every dime of student loan forgiveness should be born by the schools themselves, every dime!
Force those liberal bastards to fire the worthless Profs that make $300K a year for teaching a couple days a month.
Cut pork and the fluff and college debt could be reduced to a manageable 10K or less a year.
For the employer of a person with student loans, a sum will be automatically deducted from all wage payments and paid to the creditor.
This practice will be continued by all employers until the debt is discharged.
An employer may match the deduction is it is determined the employee has adequate value to the company. That matching deduction will not be taxable to the debtor and will be an expense to the employer
Good points.
Anyone have experience working in a non public company that began to fall on hard times? The first choice is to: get back to basics. College needs to be forced to get back to that. Get rid of the semi pro athletic departments, the SPA dorms, the research outside of STEM areas and the like would be a good start. End the “remedial” basic areas of study...one should be admitted to college based on their achievement, not needing post high school make up.
When I buy a $100,000 house, the bank runs a credit check on me to see if I’m generally reliable with money. They want proof of income so they know I can afford to pay it back. They want a home inspection (at my expense naturally) to know the house is worth what I am paying for it. And they require homeowners insurance (at my expense naturally) so that if the house is destroyed they still get their money. And if the house is worth at or very near the amount of the loan, they will ask for lender’s mortgage insurance (at my expense naturally) to pay them if I default (wasn’t that what interest rates were supposed to do?). The entire situation is scrutinzed very closely.
If I were to get a $100,000 student loan, they want documentation that I have been admitted to school and that I am paying tuition (and rent/food/books -— student loans cover living expenses as well as direct costs).
Why the complete absence of any scrutiny? It’s because (1) the government guarantees repayment and (2) The goverment is far more mercenary than any private enterprise. Specifically, student loans have far more stringent protections than any other loan. As one example, they can NOT be discharged by bankrupcy court.
So to fix the student loan problem is very simple: Allow bankrupcy to clear them in the exact same way as house loans, car loans, personal loans, credit card debt, and everything else can be cleared. This will cause banks to start asking the same questions they ask for home loans -— questions that should be asked but aren’t being asked by students and their parents about “Do I have a plan for paying this back” which one would think would be the most fundamental question about borrowing money.
I love French. I wanted to major in it. I also love science. I did a comparison of the profitability of each major and found that a science degree has way more job opportunities.
That said, I have used French professionally. But I didn’t need a degree for that. Keeping up with my fluency after spending a year as a high school exchange student in France has been good enough.
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