Santorum Hints He Will Run Again in 2016

blehman — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:02:45 -0500

Few expected Rick Santorum to do as well as he did in the 2012 Republican Primaries. Due to a confluence of events and a fair amount of stubborness on his part, he was the only serious challenger remaining against presumptive nominee Mitt Romney at the end. With the departure of candidates like Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann, Santorum became the last remaining “other than Mitt” in the race.

Apparently this bit of fortune has led Mr. Santorum, a true symbol of the worst side of conservatism if there ever were one, to think he has a shot in 2016. According to the Washington Examiner:

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who emerged as the conservative populist in the 2012 GOP presidential primaries, is already running for the 2016 nomination for president.

Santorum, who has been making the rounds at conservative media outlets, this week stepped deeper into the presidential pool when he said that he isn’t “doing anything inconsistent” with a 2016 campaign.

Say what? Now, I’m fully aware that there is still a sizable portion of the GOP that is perfectly fine with Santorum’s social views and willing to ignore his numerous sins against any notion of limited government. But it’s hard to see how Santorum could be a major player again in 2016. With the arrival of people like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, it’s hard to see where he fits in. Both Rubio and Paul are social conservatives with unimpeachable pro-life bona-fides, and it’s clear that the tide has massively changed on the issue of same-sex marriage to the point where an anti-gay message in 2016 could prove even more anachronistic than it is today.

Furthermore, I think the GOP needs to put away the social conservative playbook at least for now and focus on fiscal issues - and I would hope that most in the party realize this. On that note, Santorum is the exact opposite of what the party would want in 2016. There was a day when his politics were the standard in the GOP, but it’s hard to say that he has a place anymore. This is not to say he couldn’t attract some small portion of the party, but hardly enough to make a play for the nomination.

Of course, none of that means anything when you believe you should be president as Santorum clearly does. He believes that the party message in 2016 should be all about social issues. Let’s hope that the party is smart enough to realize that that strategy is a sure-fire way to lose in 2016.

What are Rand Paul's Plans for 2016?

blehman — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:30:15 -0500

It has been clear for some time that Senator Rand Paul sees himself as far more than Kentucky’s junior senator. Paul has established himself as a truly national figure - any remaining doubt of that was shredded by his nearly 13-hour filibuster two weeks ago, where Paul successfully took over the Senate for over half a day. His actions that day won him the praise of many, and put his name on the lips of nearly every politically aware person — and many who aren’t. Speculation has understandably abounded about whether Paul will run for President in 2016 — and if he will give up his Senate seat to do so.

Fuel for the latter proposition was added this week when Senator Paul made a dramatic reversal of the immigration views he espoused during his Senate campaign and made clear he was open to a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants (though he did not use those words). As this Politico article points out:

The endorsement of any sort of legal status for illegal immigrants amounts to a remarkable reversal for Paul, who in his first month in the Senate proposed a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship. (On Tuesday’s conference call, Paul said a secure border would make the amendment unnecessary.) While running against an establishment pick in Kentucky’s GOP primary in 2010, he proposed building an underground electric fence along the length of the entire border.

Such a position is likely to play far better in a national audience than a strictly state-wide one. It will surely be labeled as “amnesty” by many in the GOP base, and could cause him problems in Kentucky. It raises the question, then, if Paul even intends to stay in the Senate. He may have his eyes on bigger things. He has taken numerous positions in the Senate that could be seen as working to “bridge the gap” between the libertarian and conservative segments of the GOP. His strong civil liberties stances earn him praise from libertarians, while his solid pro-life positions will appeal to many conservatives.

But I’m far from convinced that he’s giving up his Senate seat. He still remains popular in his home state, and should have no problem getting re-elected if he so chooses. It has yet to be seen if his immigration positions will damage these chances, but I see no real indication that he will - or should - leave the Senate in order to run for President. Still, it’s clear that Senator Paul’s decisions over the next couple years will be some of most closely watched in Washington. He represents a great opportunity for the GOP to re-establish itself as the party of limited government. Whether or not he chooses to run for the White House in 2016, I sincerely hope to have him around for a long time.

ObamaCare Could Cause Your Premiums to Double in 2014

blehman — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:25:15 -0500

Thanks to ObamaCare, you’re going to be paying more for your health insurance in 2014 - a lot more. According to health insurers, the provisions of the law that roll out next year could cause premiums to take a massive jump - up to doubling for some people. According to the Washington Post, the hardest hit will be those who buy their insurance on their own, and some small business:

…the biggest price hikes are expected to hit a group that represents a relatively small slice of the insured population. That includes some of the roughly 14 million people who buy their own insurance as opposed to being covered under employer-sponsored plans, and to a lesser extent, some employees of smaller companies.

Those of us with any sense have long predicted this would be the case. The law is expressly designed to make premiums higher for the healthy in order to make them lower for the unhealthy. This is literally the exact opposite of what “insurance” is supposed to do. Instead of charging based on an assessment of the insuree’s risk of incurring expensive costs, premiums will now be shifted in order to be more “fair”. Meanwhile, the taxpayer will be stuck with the bill for the subsidies given to help people afford these higher premiums.

Needless to say, this will have significant impact on the economy which is already not in great shape. And not much can really be done now. ObamaCare is here to stay for now, despite some Republicans’ efforts to repeal it. The law remains unpopular, but repeal is not going to happen now, and such efforts are a waste of time.

Instead, those of us who opposed the law need to be learning about health care issues, educating our friends and family, and explaining why shifting costs from the unhealthy to the healthy makes no sense. As sad as it may sound, the pain caused may just be enough to make people open to new ideas. Obama is certain his law will become more popular as it takes effect. Let’s make sure the opposite is true.

Rand Paul gives a solid, substantive response to the State of the Union

blehman — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:00:17 -0600

President Obama’s State of the Union address was nothing new. The President continued the same leftist rhetoric he used during his inaugural address, calling for even more spending and government. As Jason wrote, he absurdly claimed that he has CUT spending, attacked the sequestration plan that he himself proposed, and called for an increase in the minimum wage would would prove disastrous to job creation. In short, it was more of the same - big government, high taxes, and spending money we don’t have.

The official Republican response was fairly lackluster. Marco Rubio is a gifted speaker, but his speech was big on platitudes and slogans and small on substance. The real response came from Senator Rand Paul. It’s no secret that Senator Paul is a favorite of mine and of many libertarian-leaning folks, so there was much anticipation that he would offer a clear vision apart from both Obama and Rubio. For the most part, he did just that.

To begin, Paul went strongly after the President and laid out a clear idea of what he believes America is really all about:

Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt.

What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous.

What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations.

He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness.

To be sure, a very different view of America than Obama represents. It is a philosophy that Republicans often claim to stand for, but often fall far short of.

Paul then offered his suggestions for how to fix our broken system. He first offered the idea of a Balanced Budget Amendment. While I have reservations about how this would actually work in practice, it’s at least a debate we should be having. Make the opponents argue why we need to spend trillions more than we take in every year. As Senator Paul pointed out, we can balance the budget far easier than we often are told - just cut a penny from every dollar we spend and you can do it.

The Senator then made clear that both parties are to blame:

It is often said that there is not enough bipartisanship up here.

That is not true.

In fact, there is plenty.

Both parties have been guilty of spending too much, of protecting their sacred cows, of backroom deals in which everyone up here wins, but every taxpayer loses.

It is time for a new bipartisan consensus.

It is time Democrats admit that not every dollar spent on domestic programs is sacred. And it is time Republicans realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud.

Both parties have for far too long pretended that only the other party is at fault for our problems. It’s heartening to see a Republican willing to call out his own party. It’s a lie there is no bipartisanship - it is just always on the wrong things.

Senator Paul offered more ideas on how to repair our system. He offered praise for immigrants, defended school choice, and proposed a 17% flat tax. He called for more transparency in Washington, term limits, and a mandate that bills are read before being passed. All good ideas that should be discussed and debated.

But my favorite part was towards the end, when he said this:

We will stand up against excessive government power wherever we see it.

We cannot and will not allow any President to act as if he were a king.

We will not let any President use executive orders to impinge on the Second Amendment.

We will not tolerate secret lists of American citizens who can be killed without trial.

….

Congress must reassert its authority as the protector of these rights, and stand up for them, no matter which party is in power.

Congress must stand as a check to the power of the executive, and it must stand as it was intended, as the voice of the people.

And here’s where he and Rubio were miles apart. Most Republicans won’t attack Obama’s egregious abuses of executive power for one simple reason - they want to be able to use it when their guy is in power. This is why they, for the most part, refuse to question the idea that the President should be able to kill whoever he wants. It was great to hear an elected Republican call out Congress for failing to stand up to the Executive Branch, including his own party.

It’s clear that Senators Paul and Rubio are two of the GOP’s rising stars. Last night showed that they represent two very different visions of where the party should go. While Rubio stuck to mostly safe ideas, Paul stuck his neck out and called out his own party. If there will be any saving the GOP, I certainly hope that Paul’s voice gains in power while Rubio and his lot fall in influence.

Erick Erickson nails the current state of conservatism

blehman — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:11:23 -0600

It’s been obvious to many that modern conservatism has, to a large degree, become bereft of ideas and more about cultural issues, and opposing Barack Obama more out of personal dislike than principled opposition. On the right you’ll hear a lot of shouting and yelling, but almost no one is making a reasoned, optimistic pitch for why conservative ideas are better for actual people. It’s become all about firing up the base, which has been shrinking for years to the point where it is no longer enough to win elections.

But it’s one thing for a libertarian like me to say it. It’s another for Erick Erickson at the major conservative blog Red State to say it. I disagree with Erick most of the time, but he has just about nailed exactly what the current state of the Right is:

What I am finding is that among conservatives there is too much outrage, piss, and vinegar. It makes our ideas less effective. We have become humorless, angry opponents of the President instead of happy warriors selling better ideas. We are not even selling ideas.

Conservatives, frankly, have become purveyors of outrage instead of preachers for a cause. Instead of showing how increasing government harms people, how free markets help people, and how conservative policies benefit all Americans, we scream “Benghazi” and “Fast & Furious.”

Exactly. We see this all over the place. Obama is not simply just someone to disagree with, but someone to hate, to view as a literal traitor and evil person. Surely the left was guilty of this to some extent in the Bush years, but never to this degree. Frankly, the right has become exceedingly boring, and most of the country agrees.

And this is a simply tragic thing. I see a massive opening for conservative and limited government ideas. Many realize that government cannot solve their problems and often makes them worse. They know that we can’t sustain our debt. And they want a better future for themselves and their kids. Yet there are few making this case in a positive way. The average conservative has become lazy, happy to live in a permanent bubble. And, sadly, our media culture lets this happen quite easily. Just keep your TV on Fox News and your dial on talk radio, and you’re immune from reality.

Those of us who believe in a smaller government and a more free society have got to stand up and demand better. A big first step would be kicking out the most noxious and unproductive voices, those who call any compromise treason and would consider Ronald Reagan to be a “RINO”. Conspiracy theories need to be jettisoned out the nearest airlock, whether they be about guns in Mexico or Hillary’s supposedly faked concussion. Stop with the boycotts and the yelling and stupid nicknames.

Obama made his case for liberalism on Monday. We know what he believes. Time to show the nation that there is another option out there.

Glenn Beck's new "libertarian" network is a good thing

blehman — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:30:00 -0600

When I first heard that Glenn Beck was going to relaunch his “The Blaze” as a libertarian-focused network, I was skeptical as I’m sure a lot of libertarians were. While Beck has called himself a libertarian for some time, he has spent the last few years peddling in conspiracy theories and general looniness that has served to be quite an embarassment. I used to listen to his radio show and watched his Fox News program for about a year before I became tired of his antics. So when his show was canceled and he moved to a pay-per-view format, I was glad to see him go.

But Beck has proven he knows what he is doing. He has been able to create a successful business outside the cable world. He is reaching a sizable audience, largely of the young folks that need to be won to the libertarian cause. These folks might already be leaning that way and would benefit greatly from hearing more libertarian viewpoints and analysis. And there are many more who simply never hear this perspective who might be getting it for the first time, or the first time by actual libertarians instead of cartoonish versions given by the regular media.

By no means should we be naive here - Beck could be doing this for purely cynical reasons and he has not shown the best judgment in who he chooses to give a platform. He is by no means a “perfect” spokesman - he has loads of baggage and a tendency to say some bothersome things. But on the other hand, libertarians simply do not have much media penetration at all now. We get the occasional visit by Judge Napolitano on Fox News (who subscribes to some truther conspiracies) and the excellent show hosted by John Stossel. Beyond that, though, what we get is the mainstream media either ignoring us or portraying us as nutjobs. The average American cannot define what a libertarian is or how our viewpoint differs from left and right.

So if the new Beck network gets these views out there, I’m all for it. If it brings more into the fold of thinking beyond red and blue, who am I to argue? Surely it could backfire and end up causing more of a headache than a benefit, but for once I’m choosing to be cautiously optimistic. The libertarian worldview simply must reach a wider audience, and it may just take an imperfect messenger to do so.

Religious doctrine is NOT a basis for law

blehman — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:07:54 -0600

Despite having no faith of my own, I am fine with those who do. If you want to live your life according to the teachings of a holy book or religious leader, I’m fine as long as you cause me no harm. I honestly could not care less if you believe in no god or twenty, given none of those gods are telling you to hurt people. But it is a different issue entirely when you try to suggest that our laws should reflect the doctrines of your particular church.

The conservative argument against marriage equality has long been couched in talk about “harm to children” and “destroying traditional marriage”, but in reality it has always been based on a simple idea - my religion doesn’t approve of homosexuality, therefore our laws cannot condone it. As it has become more and more apparent that same-sex marriage causes no harm whatsoever, anti-equality forces have gotten more desperate.

Take this post at the Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blog. Ostensibly about a new marriage equality law in Illinois, the author mentions the actual law only in passing before launching in a defense of marriage buttressed only by the words of a Catholic priest (who, incidentally, had some interesting things to say when a gay pride parade was moved to pass by his church). Does this priest have any special knowledge on the subject of marriage? It doesn’t appear so. His expertise clearly lies in one thing - the teachings and doctrine of his church.

Again, there is nothing wrong with a church teaching that gay marriage is wrong. I may disagree with them, but that’s just one of many reasons I’d never be Catholic. The problem is that this is entirely irrelevant when we’re discussing whether a law should be passed or not. We don’t live in the Vatican or in a country ruled by Sharia law. We live in a (mostly) free country that should be founded on values of tolerance and liberty. Some may hate this fact and wish we were a Catholic nation, but we simply are not.

And as for these fears about “threats to religious liberty”? There are none. Churches will never have to marry same sex couples, any more than they have to ordain female or gay priests. If you want this to be even more assured, you should be all for separating church and state even more - not bringing them closer together. It’s because we have this strange mix that these issues even exist. If the state never got involved in marriage to begin with, this whole debate might have never even happened.

Recapping 2012: Felix Baumgartner's Badass Skydive

blehman — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 12:20:47 -0600

On October 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner of Austria accomplished one of the most insane, unimaginably badass things I’ve ever seen. As part of a project called Red Bull Stratos, Baumgartner rode a balloon pod upwards of 24 miles above the Earth… then jumped off. During the descent, he reached speeds in excess of the speed of sound - up to Mach 1.24 - becoming the first human being to do this without any kind of engine power.

As I watched this unfurl with millions of others around the world, including most of my Twitter timeline, disbelief slowly turned into outright anxiety as the sheer insanity of the jump took hold. The Earth became smaller and smaller as the balloon rose to incredible altitudes. When Felix opened the pod and dangled his feet outside, it was almost hard to watch. If something went wrong, we all knew what could happen.

Yet, amazingly, the jump went off fine, even when Felix started spinning. He was able to regain control, and preliminary analysis suggests he broke three of the four records he hoped to - highest manned balloon flight, highest skydive, and first human to reach the speed of sound without a vehicle. It just goes to show that mankind can still accomplish incredible things - given the right motivations and the perfect combination of courage and insanity.

Megan McArdle makes some good points...then almost ruins it

blehman — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:14:08 -0600

I’ll be honest - I haven’t read much of the “analysis” of the Newtown shooting because, frankly, it’s almost entirely useless. People on both sides of the political spectrum have used it to make their own points without any regard to whether said points fit the facts. We have liberals making the case for gun control, ignoring the fact that the killer stole guns legally purchased and in fact was stopped from buying a gun by strict Connecticut gun laws. And we have conservatives making the absurd argument that schools should be militarized with armed guards - even teachers packing heat. Neither of these ideas is helpful in the least. Meanwhile, I’ve spent the few words I’ve uttered on the subject trying to combat these two opposing extremes, lacking the knowledge or boldness (one could say arrogance) to say much of my own.

So far, the only piece I’ve seen that even attempts to make my own feelings clear was written by Megan McArdle at The Daily Beast. The problem with the post is that Megan, after starting off with some good points, then veers off course and takes a leap into what I will charitably call “unconventional ideas”. But before making that detour, I found myself agreeing with much of what she was saying - simply that all the obvious “solutions” are not solutions at all, and that we need to be realistic about what we can do to prevent events like the shooting. Megan notes:

What Lanza shows us is the limits of the obvious policy responses. He had all the mental health resources he needed—and he did it anyway. The law stopped him from buying a gun—and he did it anyway. The school had an intercom system aimed at stopping unauthorized entry—and he did it anyway. Any practical, easy-to-implement solution to school shootings that you could propose, along with several that were not at all easy to implement, was already in place. Somehow, Lanza blew through them all.

And she’s right. Sometimes, despite our best efforts to stop catastrophes, they still happen. Such is part of life, and something our policymakers need to be reminded of more often - there isn’t always a law we can pass or a policy we can implement. The urge to “do something” is often a recipe for disaster.

McArdle then goes on to take out, one by one, the possible solutions proposed by both gun control advocates and those who favor other actions like limiting the press or making it easier to commit the mentally ill involuntarily. Each off these moves has severe limitations, and, in many cases, very strong reasons why they would be unconstitutional, or at least pose major challenges to personal liberty. I for one do not want a situation in which people can be locked up for simply being “strange” or “anti-social.” Nor do I want the press to be restricted in what they can say.

After spending a few paragraphs explaining why a total gun ban is not going to happen, Megan finally reaches the point that myself and many others are at - that we really can’t do that much. We can make small changes in the laws, but at some point we need to be humble and realize we cannot predict the future or stop a madman who is truly determined. She writes:

It would certainly be more comfortable for me to endorse doing something symbolic—bring back the “assault weapons ban”—in order to signal that I care. But I would rather do nothing than do something stupid because it makes us feel better. We shouldn’t have laws on the books unless we think there’s a good chance they’ll work: they add regulatory complexity and sap law-enforcement resources from more needed tasks. This is not because I don’t care about dead children; my heart, like yours, broke about a thousand times this weekend. But they will not breathe again because we pass a law. A law would make us feel better, because it would make us feel as if we’d “done something”, as if we’d made it less likely that more children would die. But I think that would be false security. And false security is more dangerous than none.

And that’s exactly the point we should be making. No law is better than bad law. Bad laws have unintended consequences that very often outweigh any marginal benefit. And in this case, they would be so purely symbolic as to be meaningless. Now, you’d think that this would be the end of the piece. But does anyone ever write something where the conclusion is “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an answer”? Not often. So Megan then decides to try her hand at a solution and, well, pretty much goes off the deep end:

My guess is that we’re going to get a law anyway, and my hope is that it will consist of small measures that might have some tiny actual effect, like restrictions on magazine capacity. I’d also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.

Um… how about no? She may be right, that 8-12 people rushing a shooter might be enough to bring him down. But I’m not sure if she’s ever seen a video of how people react when someone starts firing. They run, and understandably so - the urge to self-preservation is one of the strongest things we experience. It’s simply not human nature to do the opposite. As Jonathan Chait notes in his response at New York Magazine:

McArdle does allow that such behavior runs contrary to instinct. Well, yes. Teaching even fairly aggressive young boys who are learning football to avoid their self-preservation instinct and crash into their opponent full speed rather than shying away from contact usually takes rigorous, lengthy training. This is when they’re wearing a helmet and full-body padding and going up against a kid their age. Trying to get them to fling their bodies into danger in a situation where they’re in shock, have no protection, and are facing an adult with a gun rather than a kid with a football is beyond impossible.

Exactly. And this is where McArdle just about ruins anything she accomplished with her other points. At the root of any good policy is an understanding of human nature. The free market works as well as it does because it harnesses this fact. McArdle’s argument is being called libertarianism taken to an extreme, but I think it’s anything but that. Libertarians believe that people should take care of themselves, but we’re also aware that human nature is what it is. You can’t make an average person run *towards* a shooter and it’s a crazy idea to suggest that as a policy.

Bad suggestions aside, the primary message of the piece remains sound - there are no satisfying answers to something like Newtown, and there are no laws that we can pass that will really prevent such things from happening. It’s our natural instinct to think otherwise - that “something must be done”. It’s scary to accept that there may be horrible events we cannot have any reasonable hope of preventing without making severe sacrifices. It’s unfortunate that this point is overshadowed by the final paragraphs, because it’s something that needs to be said. Sometimes, evil happens and we can’t do anything about it.

It's time to stop paying for other people's college educations

blehman — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:20:27 -0600

Over the past several decades, it has become accepted that the cost of higher education will continue to rise every year, far outpacing inflation or any other category (save perhaps health care). Every year, more and more colleges raise tuition to ungodly levels, fully knowing that the federal government will cover the difference. There is little incentive for them to do otherwise. Quite simply, college is not anything close to resembling a free market. We have come to accept the idea that everyone should be able to go to college, including ones that are wildly overpriced, and that government - that is, taxpayers - should foot the bill.

And yet, even questioning this is akin to wanting poor kids to suffer. During the 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney, supposedly from the party that likes free markets, was a staunch defender of Pell Grants, one of the primary government programs used to subsidize college tuition. Romney even expressed a desire to expand the program. For those who don’t know, the basic principle of Pell Grants is that the government gives you money towards your tuition - with no obligation to pay it back. There are various qualifiers for this money, but it is basically a gift if you get it. So needless to say, when I heard this during the debate, one thing was clear - you’re not allowed to question the basic idea that government has an interest, even an obligation, to pay for college for those who cannot afford it.

It’s a nice intention, to be sure. Traditionally college has been a way for kids to get ahead in the world - degree holders still earn more on average than those with just high school education. But for many, college is useless or counterproductive. This is because the higher education product has become so diluted that many degrees are essentially worthless. Add to that the fact that there is virtually no one who cannot get into some school and “earn” some letters on a piece of paper, and the fact that, due to the above issues, even the high cost is not as much of a barrier because of so much government help. Because of this, college is not seen as an investment in time and money to be made with great care and thought, but, rather, a right and something you are entitled to enjoy without much personal risk.

Yet as bad as the situation is, it’s just going to get worse if Obama and his allies get their way. A new policy being proposed will take the problem and make it unfathomably worse. Under the new guidelines, student loan payments would be limited in both amount and years, with the effect that no student would ever have to pay more than a certain amount. Thus, there would be literally no reason to go to a cheaper school, since you’d only be on the hook for, say, $30,000, even if your education cost over $160,000 (which is easy these days). As reported by Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,

The revised “Pay as You Earn” program will allow eligible student-loan borrowers to cap monthly payments at 10 percent of discretionary income, and have their federal student loans forgiven after 20 years — or just 10 years, if they go to work for the government. An earlier version of the program capped payments at 15 percent and offered forgiveness after 25 years. For students who foolishly attended third-rate but expensive colleges and law schools, this could wipe out part of their debt, at taxpayer expense, since their salaries in the low-paying jobs they end up with will be insufficient to pay off all of their massive debt in 20 years if they pay only 10 percent of their leftover income on repaying their student loans.

So why not go to school at a wildly overpriced college? You’re only going to pay 10% of your “discretionary income” and after 20 years, your debt is forgiven - 10 years if you work for Uncle Sam. Who’s going to pay the rest of this? The taxpayer, of course. While they are struggling to pay off their own student loans and perhaps save for their own kid’s college, they are paying off some kid who took out loans that no sane person would ever take out if they knew they’d have to pay them. Meanwhile, there’s a good shot they are also paying this person’s unemployment if their expensive degree didn’t pan out.

I’m all for helping others achieve their dreams, but this idea that I’m responsible for other people to go to college has got to stop. Quite simply, no one should be going to a college they cannot reasonably afford with a combination of family help, their own income, and reasonable student loans. I’m sorry if this means that you can’t go to Harvard when your parents work blue-collar jobs and you don’t have good enough grades to get a free ride. But guess what - you don’t need to there to do well. You can go to community college or to a cheaper school that will give you a fine education. You don’t have a right to my earnings to satisfy your need to go to prestigious, wildly overpriced schools.

As a whole, we need to stop thinking we have the right to demand other folks pay for whatever nice things we want. We see the result of the obsession that everyone has a right to home ownership - mortgages with little or no downpayment given to folks who should have never qualified. Education is no different. If you want to go to college, either pick one you can afford, work a few years and save some money up, or do something else. Stop demanding that I pay for it. You don’t get all the nice things in life just because you want them. If we stop this attitude, colleges will have to reduce prices and finally the cost of higher education might be appropriate to its actual usefulness.

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