BY RUSSELL TURNER
WHAT’S ANOTHER TRILLION?
Our country became great because of the ideals of self reliance, strong individualism and personal responsibility. I believe decisions that we make can have consequences, and as adults we have to deal with them. One of my best lessons in life dealt with personal finances and debt. I was taught that if you make a debt it is your responsibility to pay it. Sadly, many Americans do not hold those values any more. In a speech by President Obama in Scranton, PA, he told a gathering of college students at Scranton University of his plans to forgive all federal student loan payments by the end of the year. While all of this feel good rhetoric may sound good to some people, I have some points that need to be made.
Our president has a bad habit of wanting to decide what is fair in life and what is not. While he thinks that forgiving all of the student loans is a fair thing, I totally disagree. When I decided to obtain higher education, along with my parent’s help I worked and saved my money in order to avoid taking out any student loans. Is it fair to take the tax dollars that the hard working frugal people pay to the government then turn around and give out those funds as student loans then simply write them off? I often wonder if the people that have their student loans written off would in turn do some of the hard demanding work and donate it to the people who have paid their own way. It has been my experience that most of them with their high education are above any such menial labor. In Mr. Obama’s speech he made the statement, ‘We need colleges to teach our young people useful skills like sociology, gender studies and postmodern Moldovan literary analysis. But the most important thing we need to teach them isresponsibility. And what better way to teach responsibility than to hold these banks accountable for the terrible loans they've made."
We need to remind ourselves of some important points. First of all, no one twisted the student’s arms to take out student loans. Second, when he talks about being responsible the example that he and many in Washington DC are setting is nothing short of a joke, and the joke in on the American people. Our national debt is hovering around 17 trillion dollars and it doesn’t seem to concern them. Maybe they think the people holding that debt will simply write it off as well. Thirdly, the money President Obama wants to write off doesn’t belong to him; it is owed to the taxpayers of this nation. Our elected leaders have found out that it is much easier to spend taxpayer money instead of their own.
The student loans in America are estimated to be over $1 trillion. If it is written off, I guess it is no big deal; it is just another TRILLION for future generations to pay.
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