Turn Them Over to the Torturers

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and today the paving stones are often student loans. What a royal mess! We've produced millions of young people with debts they can't hope to pay, degrees and training certificates that aren't worth the paper they are printed on, no prospect of a decent job, and little hope things will ever change. As always it is the poor and vulnerable who suffer most.

It was a noble idea. Offer low interest guaranteed loans to young people who might not otherwise be able to afford college. They will graduate to good paying jobs, repay the loans, and become productive taxpayers. What's not to like? But of course there were reasons those loans were unavailable from traditional private lenders. The students typically had no collateral. The loans were high risk. Not to worry, the government will mitigate the risk by making the debt not dischargeable in bankruptcy. More, the government has collection tools not available to private lenders. They can confiscate tax refunds and even garnish welfare checks. What risk?

It worked for a while. Nobody seemed to notice that tuition was going up faster than inflation. There was always another loan to cover it. Educators began to offer more and more programs in ethnic and gender studies. Who could put a price on high ideals? Lobbyists got eligibility broadened to cover training in everything from computer programming to hair styling. Students were often not sophisticated enough to ask whether there might be a real job waiting.

So here we are. We've got people with six figure debts qualified at best for low five digit jobs. They will carry the debts to their graves, chased all the way by the hounds from collection agency hell.

This has got to stop. I'm not sure what the solution is but it is in nobody's best interest to have so many young people deferring major life decisions like marrying and buying a home, maybe permanently. We have bankruptcy laws for a reason. If you can't pay, you can't pay. The lender has to have some risk too.

I don't like the notion of bureaucrats managing college curricula but if taxpayers are going to pay for it shouldn't somebody see that we get value for our money? And aren't most college administrators government bureaucrats anyway?

We could start with a better job of counseling. A student who starts taking out loans should at least have a clear where they are leading. Is there any reason college and student couldn't enter into a contractual relationship for a degree program based on a reasonable plan? One with consequences for both it the plan goes off track? What will the total debt be at graduation? What will the payment be and what is a reasonable expectation for disposable income? Could such a plan be evaluated by a disinterested third party?

After WWII we built what remains the world's finest university system. We financed it largely with the GI Bill. Returning service men took the money they were eligible for and spent it at pretty much the school of their choice, and by and large they spent it wisely. But these were adults and they didn't have to repay the money. Most of today's students haven't had those life experiences and they do have to pay. But why couldn't we take a new look at the GI Bill, see what made it work so well and how it might be tweaked to work with today's student loan program?

In the meantime we've got to do something about all these young people with debts they can't pay. We can't just throw them all into debtors prison. 

Godless Democrats

Senator Richard Durbin reacted angrily yesterday when asked why Democrats had deleted all reference to God in their party platform. He accused the questioner of insinuating that his was a godless party. But it was a fair question. It is a fact that the platform no longer mentioned God, for the first in history for either party. It is reasonable to infer that the omission underscores the party's increasing distance from the social values of main stream America. I should note that the party restored the reference today in an ugly scene on the convention floor.

I have friends who tend to vote Democratic because they think they better represent the teaching of the church on issues of social justice. They struggle with the abortion issue but are not single issue voters and tend to side with Democrats on most everything else. I don't see it. I think my friends are wrong.

Let's start with abortion. Everybody knows the Catholic Church teaches it is an intrinsic evil, always wrong. Democrats have adopted a position opposing any restrictions, approving even late term and partial birth abortion. President Obama as a state senator voted against requiring medical care for babies who survive abortion. Those babies typically have immature lungs and are often allowed to die of asphyxiation. Those are extreme positions that would be opposed by most Americans.

Abortion isn't the only intrinsic evil. Racism is another. For many years Barack Obama attended a Chicago Church founded on Black Liberation Theology. He didn't see anything particularly controversial in the hate speech coming from Reverend Jeremiah Wright until it became a campaign issue. The President's reflexive racism surfaced again in his condemnation of Cambridge police for arresting black Harvard Professor Henry Gates, and more recently in pre-judging George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Williams. Many Americans discount bigotry when it comes from black people but there is no place for it in a President of any color.

How about school choice? Access to a basic education is a fundamental human right. Many American children are trapped in failing schools, especially in the inner city. Among the most notorious bad schools are those in Washington D.C. The current administration was no sooner in office than Education Secretary Arne Duncan moved to cancel a voucher program that allowed a few children to attend private schools, including the school attended by the President's daughters. The program was reinstated largely through the efforts of House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican. School choice programs have proved effective in many places where they have been tried but are routinely opposed by teachers unions and Democrats. This is social justice?

Let's talk about unions. Few would dispute that workers have a right to join a union, though there are those who argue that public sector unions should not have collective bargaining rights. And Democrats are unquestionably the party of organized labor. But don't unions have responsibilities as well as rights? Aren't they morally obliged to work for the common good as well as their own, just like the rest of us? Can anyone argue seriously that unions have historically done that? Democrats last year tried to pass the Card Check bill which would have abolished the secret ballot in union elections and allowed organizers to intimidate workers. Some justice that!

My friends would argue that, as Mario Cuomo once said of Ronald Reagan, Republicans just want to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the middle class. My response is that what most of the poor and the middle class really need is a better job, or any job.

And why did Democrats take God out of their platform?