Student Loans

The Positive Contributions Of The Barack Obama Presidency

So here we are on the last full day of the Barack Obama Presidency, which I have been writing about since August 2008, and just about daily since 2010.

Barack Obama has been an historic President, and will end up in the top ten of our 44 Presidents over time, if not immediately.

Barack Obama was the most pilloried President since Richard Nixon, but for no good reason, and a lot of it was based on pure racism, sorry to say, but the truth.

But Obama brought us a dignified, classy persona to the White House, as did his wife Michelle.

He gave us the biggest expansion of our health care system, and much of it will survive the Donald Trump and Republican onslaught in the end.

He gave us the concept of limited military involvement, after decades of too many interventions overseas, and ended our involvement in Iraq, and cut back dramatically on the unwinnable war in Afghanistan.

He gave us the possibility of ending the threat of Iran as a nuclear power, and opened up a new relationship with Cuba, after 55 years of ignoring reality.

He accomplished through the use of technology and drones the elimination of thousands of terrorists worldwide, and took the gamble to bring justice to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

He started moving the focus of American foreign policy to Asia and the Pacific, and kept good relations with America’s NATO allies, and kept Russia’s Vladimir Putin on edge. about how America would react toward his aggressive stands.

He made climate change worldwide a crucial focus, and participated in international agreements, and accepted science over conspiracy theories, and made us realize global warming was a danger to American national security.

He took an economy that was the worst since the Great Depression, what is called the Great Recession, and turned it around, with the greatest job growth over eight years in American history, the greatest stock market growth, and the greatest drop in the unemployment rate that has occurred in any administration.

He accomplished in health care what Presidents since Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson to Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush had been unable to do.

He brought about the revival of the American auto industry, and advanced the rights of workers to overtime pay and increased minimum wage, and the rights of consumers through the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

He advanced women’s rights, including to equal pay, and gave DREAM kids a reprieve from possible deportation, and promoted the idea of universal pre school and community college education, and worked to try to deal with the student loan crisis.

He advocated fair treatment of Muslims in America, and became the champion of gay equality in the military, gay rights in society, and gay marriage and transgender rights.

He became a great advocate of the environment, adding to our national parks and national forests and endangered sites, and continued the tradition of earlier exceptional environmental Presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton before him.

He utilized executive orders to expand the rights of the American people, and worked for legal and judicial reform, and appointed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.

He cared about the weak, the powerless, and the forgotten groups in American society, and set a good moral basis in his own life and that of his family, becoming a model for young people as to how a President should conduct himself.

He avoided lashing out at those who promoted bigotry, and also showed emotion after his failed attempts at immigration reform and gun safety legislation. He had real tears, emotions, and sincerity in the Oval Office, which has hardly ever seen that, and hard to think of any earlier President quite like Obama.

He also faced the greatest number of threats of any President since Abraham Lincoln, as delineated in my Assassinations book, and demonstrated great courage and equanimity in waking up every day, knowing he was a target for hate mongers who wished him and his family ill will.

And finally, he had two terms of office without any hint of a personal, or otherwise, major scandal!

So Barack Obama was a FINE MAN, a different spelling of this author’s and blogger’s last name, and he will rise in the Presidential rankings to the top ten, and likely higher in the middle of the top ten at some point in the future, as he was truly a transformational President!

Goodbye, President and Mrs Obama, we will miss you, and wish you many decades of good health, prosperity, and happiness, as you continue to contribute to American betterment! God bless you both!

Bernie Sanders’ Promotion Of Free Undergraduate Tuition At All Public Universities And Colleges

Let me begin this entry by pointing out that the author was the beneficiary of a free tuition undergraduate education for four years at Queens College of the City University of New York in the 1960s.

The entire City University of New York system, and the State University of New York System, had free undergraduate tuition a half century ago, until it disappeared in the crises over budgetary issues in the early 1970s.

Also, the entire California University System had free tuition for all undergraduates, until the Governorship of Ronald Reagan in the late 1960s and early 1970s, leading to anger over the Vietnam War, and the imposition of tuition after widespread student demonstrations on the campuses across California. Budgetary issues were used as the reason, but much of it was a conservative attack on higher education in the largest populated state.

Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, 50 years later, the average student must go into tremendous debt to gain a higher education, causing massive student loan payments that harm the economic future of those students and of their ability to buy homes, cars, have children, and live the “American Dream”.

In many states, the cost of a public higher education, including all expenses, is more than $20,000, forcing many to forgo education, and to undermine the concept of gaining an open mind and tolerance, which a college education provides, along with training for a specific career.

So we have seen a “war” on higher education, particularly in states governed by Republican Governors and legislatures, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and other states.

Education is not just for career training, but also for promoting ability to analyze, evaluate, interpret, and develop problem solving skills, and to make college more difficult is counter productive.

In the midst of this reality, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an announced Democratic Presidential candidate, has proposed providing taxpayer supported undergraduate education at all public universities and colleges, and while this would be expensive, it is worth considering.

Returning to the tradition in New York and California 50 years ago, and making it nationwide, would be a good move! Education should be considerd a right, not a privilege to be left only to those who can afford it, similar to the public school system. Of course, conservatives and Republicans are out to destroy the public school system as well, in favor of charter schools, which should not be allowed to harm the concept of public education begun in the 1820s in the New England states.

Senator Elizabeth Warren And Senator Rand Paul Gaining Attention In 2016 Presidential Race!

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul are gaining a lot of attention for the 2016 Presidential race with their recent speeches and campaigning.

Warren, a freshman Senator, who gained fame from her campaign for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has stirred the imagination of left wing Democrats, who are unhappy with the comparatively centrist campaign of Hillary Clinton.

Warren has made issues of unemployment compensation, raising the minimum wage, attacking Wall Street, and calling for revising the college student loan system, which has effectively enslaved millions of students in unending college loan debt, due to high interest rates.

She comes across as folksy, not bad for a former Harvard professor, and has gained large audiences in red states such as Kentucky and West Virginia, where she has campaigned for candidates Alison Lungergan Grimes and Natalie Tennant for Senate seats. Remember, however, that she was born and lived for years in Oklahoma.

She is a new face, in the sense of national exposure, but only two years younger than Hillary Clinton.

Paul, the son of former Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, has gained attention by his attack on Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have both called for returning troops to Iraq. Paul makes it clear that America should not return to involvement in Iraq, and he seems to have the American people on his side, based on public opinion polls. He comes across as principled, while neocons attack him as isolationist, which he denies.

It is still hard to imagine either Warren or Paul gaining the nominations of their parties for 2016, but anything is possible, and they are certainly adding a lot of interest into the race!

The Imminent Doubling Of College Student Loan Interest Rates: Tragedy For America!

If nothing is done to prevent it, on July 1, student loan interest rates will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, and the Republicans in the House of Representatives are doing nothing to prevent this tragedy, not only for college students, but for the long term future of the American economy!

As it is, many college students are in a bind, unable to pay their student loans, and therefore, will lose their credit rating, and be unable to purchase homes, rent apartments, buy automobiles, plan to have children, and all of the other plans and dreams of young people, who get an education and then discover how difficult it is to gain employment in their field of study!

37 million young people have student loans, and close to 7 million are delinquent on student loans more than 90 days.

The average outstanding student debt per household was nearly $27,000 in 2010, and one in four students have a debt more than $61,000 per household, an insurmountable burden.

69 percent of student loans are paid by middle class and poor families, and 24 cents of every dollar earned in a poor household and 12 cents of every dollar earned in a middle class household goes to student debt payments. For the higher income level, only 2 cents per dollar earned goes to student debts, and only 31 percent of loans are in higher income households.

$1.1 trillion, second only to mortgage debt, is owned by students who have no hope in many cases of ever coming out from under what is a form of economic slavery!

With the Great Recession of 2008 and its aftermath, the effect has been to delay or forgo the vision of ever having a normal economic life of home, automobile, and marriage, the whole concept of the “American Dream”!

While this crisis festers, banks are able to borrow from the Federal Reserve at 0.75 percent, one eighth of what students will face after July 1, adding $2500 to their financial burden, while under a plan of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, students would get the same interest rate as banks, and save an average of $6500 per student.

This change in student loan interest needs to be adopted, but the GOP seems uninterested in doing anything, and lack of action will victimize millions of college students!

67 percent of Americans want the Warren plan adopted, and 83 percent want the loan rate to stay at 3.4 percent or go down to the bank rate of 0.75 percent!

Can the Republican Party for once do what is right for young people, since not all young people are born to wealthy parents? Can they show some understanding of the struggles of young people trying to get ahead and get an education, and still have a future of independence, ownership of homes and autos, ability to have children, and save for retirement?

Should student loans become a new form of economic slavery forced on us by banks which have no conscience, other than obscene profits?

Republicans Are Declaring War On Students: Doubling Of Student Loan Interest A Month Away!

The Republican House of Representatives has voted to allow a doubling of student loan rates on July 1, and unless they change their tune, that is what will happen, as action needs to be taken to prevent an automatic increase!

This is a new declaration of war, adding to that on women, immigrants, racial minorities, labor, senior citizens, the poor, the middle class, and the environment!

Bob Dole and other sane Republicans of the past generation KNOW that the GOP is on a maniacal path, which leads to long term doom for the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, and Reagan! The GOP is committing suicide, but meanwhile, is making victims of vast numbers of the American people!

Marco Rubio Response To State Of The Union Speech Of Barack Obama Comes Up Short!

Florida Senator Marco Rubio presented the official GOP response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night.

As always, Senator Rubio comes across as charismatic, handsome, well spoken, and a pleasant personality.

But when it comes to substance, Rubio was wanting in many ways.

He hardly touched on foreign policy at all, spending most of his time condemning “big” government, claiming that it cannot solve people’s problems, forgetting that he is where he is because of help from government through student loan programs, which he pointed out he had just paid off finally after many years of payments.

Rubio failed to realize that it is government which provides so many opportunities and forms of assistance, including his mother’s Medicare and Social Security.

Rubio forgets that it was the interstate highway system, initiated by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which has allowed the nation, and particularly Florida, to become a success story in growth of population and economic opportunity.

Rubio criticizes government, while making sure that he spends his career in government service, including the Florida legislature, where he spent a decade.

It is also ironic that Rubio and his party attack “big” government, when George W. Bush led the greatest expansion of government in four decades!

Rubio offered no hope for any solution to gun violence, and denied climate change, just as he has, earlier, questioned evolution, so he believes that science has no validity, while invoking religion, of course, all of the time, forgetting that we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights that promotes separation of church and state.

Rubio also shows bad math, as he claims Barack Obama has raised the national debt more than any President, which is not true, and fails to reflect the deep chasm we were in when he took the oath of office, the worst since 1933!

And his belief that often corrupt state governments, including his own state of Florida, can do a better job of operating safety net programs, is belied by the stark truth of just the opposite result!

So Marco Rubio gives a good speech, but the details come up short, if one is interested in reality!

But one thing Rubio accomplished is to make him more noticed as a leading Presidential possibility for his party in 2016!

Further Proof That Mitt Romney Is Out Of Touch With Reality

Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee for President, spoke to college students at Otterbein College in Ohio yesterday, and suggested they take a risk and start a small business.

Sounds like not a bad idea, right?

But he suggested that if that student does not have the money to start a business, then ask one’s parents to help him out with a loan.

Does Romney not realize that many families cannot afford to pay for their children’s college education, and yet they are supposed to be able to help their children start a business?

Does he not realize that many middle class, as well as poor families, are living hand to mouth, having lost jobs, homes, pensions, due to Republican policies under George W. Bush and the Republican Party in the first eight years of this century?

Mitt Romney had the advantage of wealthy parents, but most Americans do not have that advantage, and now, millions of them also have unbelievable levels of debt from their education, and would have, therefore, no means to be able to start a small business!

And of course, Romney would not support the idea of having taxpayers help pay off those student debts by, god forbid, expecting wealthy people to pay a fair share of taxes after eight years of getting away with that responsibility due to the Bush tax cuts. After all, that would mean that HE would have to pay more taxes, and that would be an absolute outrage, wouldn’t it?

So expect students to pay their debts in full, now nearing $1 trillion, even though we spend $2 trillion a month in Afghanistan, but still suggest that their impoverished parents give them a loan to start a small business!

It is clear that Mitt Romney is an ostrich with his head in the sand, totally out of touch with reality!