Most college students have a love-hate relationship with student loans. On one hand, they help us pay for all those necessary things such as textbooks, clothes and tuition. But on the other hand, we still have to pay them all back. In fact, according to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics reported on the Web site of Medical Students Resource Guide, about 50 percent of recent college graduates have student loans, with an average debt of $10,000.
As if Sallie Mae's pestering didn't annoy us enough already, the Republicans in the House just voted to slash student loans, according to the Associated Press. But it doesn't stop there. On Oct. 28, the House Agriculture Committee voted to add to an omnibus budget-cutting bill with $844 million of cuts to food stamp programs, according to a Reuters article.
I remember living on food stamps as a little kid. Even at the tender age of five, I couldn't help but feel embarrassed in the check-out line when everybody else paid in cash, but we had to pay in slips of paper that looked like play money. Still, those little slips of paper meant the difference between eating dinner and going to bed hungry.
I wonder if President George W. Bush ever had that experience.
Some people have chided me for not believing that America is the greatest nation on Earth.
Though I don't usually partake in flag-waving habits such as bickering over which nation that status belongs to, I really don't think that we can call ourselves the greatest nation on Earth. Certainly not when, according to the Reuters article, the Department of Agriculture reported in 2004 that 38.2 million
Americans had trouble getting enough to eat, and when our very own government's statistics show poverty rates on the rise. Instead of addressing this problem, our "compassionate conservatives" have decided to show their compassion by gutting the programs that help people get enough to eat.
But the politicians who made these decisions didn't do so because they live in some libertarian fantasy land where, if everyone just worked hard and practiced fiscal responsibility, there would be no poverty. No - they cut the budget so that they could cut taxes.
Bush's tax cuts have created a budget deficit that currently stands at more than $300 billion. According to the Republican Party's Web site, Bush wants to make those cuts permanent. So how do we keep such a foolhardy system going?
First, we get the Chinese to buy up U.S. Treasuries to keep inflation down. Then, to trim the deficit, we cut government programs.
But the programs our leaders cut always fall into a certain category: programs that help people. They invariably cut programs designed to help the poor and less advantaged in society.
"They are targeting programs for poor people to pay for tax cuts for rich people," Democratic Representative David Obey said in an article released by the Associated Press.
But what does it matter? By the law of the jungle capitalism that Bush appears to desire, a few people living in billionaire splendor while millions live in destitute squalor is only natural. It's also only natural that those millions of poor people should have fewer and fewer opportunities to improve their situations, such that even perfect SAT scores and good grades in high school won't count for anything if they don't make the right salary.
Kanye West got it wrong - Bush doesn't merely cast his uncaring eye toward black people. Rather, he doesn't care about anyone below the six-figure income bracket.
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu
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