BAD IDEA FOR STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS!

Monday, August 29^th, 2022

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

BAD IDEA FOR STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS!

 

I’m sorry to say that President Biden does not pay much attention to me.  I wrote in my weekly column back in early July that forgiving federally guaranteed student loans was bad fiscal policy, and unfair to all of the rest of taxpayers. Despite these objections, the President last week announced that he would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt, and more if the student received a Pell Grant.  Louisiana members of congress, with justification, shapely criticized this new policy.

 

Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, generally a more moderate republican, lashed out at loan forgiveness saying: “President Biden didn’t ‘forgive student debt,’ he chose to shift the burden of the well-off onto the backs of the 87 percent of Americans who chose to not go to college, already paid off their loans, or saved to not take them out in the first place," said Cassidy. "This decision is a spit in the face of Louisiana families who are struggling to get by.”

 

Senator John Kennedy also expressed his opposition tweeting: “Americans who already paid off their debt, worked through college, went to a trade school, or chose to not go to school will pay off the loans that other people incurred. On what planet is that fair? The President’s plan doesn’t forgive debt- it transfers it to people who don’t owe it.”

 

Even Kennedy’s democratic challenger Luke Mixon said loan forgiveness was a bad idea. “We need to solve the problem by making college more affordable,” Mixon said, but he still joined other democratic voices in saying that a deal is a deal and students should not be allowed to renege paying back their loan.

And what about the legality of the President doing this in the first place?

 

 Shouldn’t congress have to approve such huge financial debt increase? Biden used a provision of the federal law that few have head of called the post-9/11 Heroes Act, that allows loan payments can be forgiven in times of a national emergency. So what’s the “national emergency.”  No one is saying.

Is there any justification for loan modification or forgiveness?  Yes, if the borrower gives service back.  Here are a few examples of where loan forgiveness makes sense.

Institute a much stronger Teacher Loan Forgiveness program.  Louisiana is far short of the number of teachers needed in elementary and high school.  I suggest forgiving 20% of the loan each year for five years.

National Guard Forgiveness.  The Louisiana National Guard has been a critical component protecting the state during hurricanes and floods. Quite frankly, the Guard needs to be used even more for intervention in high crime areas like New Orleans and Baton Rouge. New Orleans right now is a hell hole of criminal activity. We should use the National Guard more, but give student Guard members incentives through loan forgiveness for a six-year commitment. I paid my $75,000 student loan over 13 years. Every penny with no forgiveness. I served for 12 years the Louisiana National Guard, and would certainly like to have had such a program in place during my time of duty. I paid my $75,000 student over 13 years. Every penny with no forgiveness.

Active Military Service- About 75 percent of America's 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service due to being overweight, lack of education, or criminal history.  If a military applicant is otherwise eligible, then forgive his or her student loan after a three-year commitment.

AmeriCorps offers an opportunity for public service both nationally and internationally, for citizens to work in healthcare and other important public venues. The program should be publicized more and should offer loan forgiveness for those who sign up for extended periods. These are some of the ways for those former students who give back and qualify for a loan forgiveness.

And what about all the students just entering college?  Will we forgive their loans too?  Millions of parents sacrificed and saved so their kids would not have large college debt.  And millions of students worked their way through college, then spent years paying off their commitment.  It’s a mistake to saddle taxpayers with the bill of those who want another governmental handout.

Peace and Justice

 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also look over a list of books he has published at www.thelisburnpress.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

HOW DO WE COME TOGETHER AGAIN?

Monday, August 22^nd, 2022

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

HOW DO WE COME TOGETHER AGAIN?

 

Abraham Lincoln was elected President 162 years ago.  Civil War buffs are looking back to these war years for lessons learned in the current debate over the stagnation of the American political process today.  Historians say that there were two Americas-a house divided-back then. Do we find the same two Americas today?

Historian Philip Kennicott tells us that “The Civil War taught us, as a nation, our patterns of argument, our impatience with hypocrisy, our sense that every election is an apocalypse.  It taught us how to be stupid, how to provoke our enemies, how to resist modernity, how to fight on after logic an argument have failed.”

Give Lincoln credit for believing that he had history on his side.  His appreciation of history was not free will, but a belief that deterministic forces gave his view of America as an upward spiral of progress. As Kennicott suggests, “There is a pattern and a progress to history, rather than endless cycles of growth, violence and decay.”   What Hegel viewed as a “grand process of the consciousness of Freedom.”

 

It was Lincoln’s vision of history that America was a special place on a historical path that transcended politics, economics and morality. For Lincoln, History for America had a capital H. He felt it imperative that political leaders of his time pass on to the next generation just what it means to be an American.  The weakness of both national parties today is their failure to both grapple with and convey the premise that America cannot survive as the leader of the free world unless there is a “why “to survive.

Republicans and Democrats alike have not articulated what our country’s values are.  Just what is it that makes this country exceptional with a system of government unparalleled in human history?  I personally believe there is a uniqueness that gives our county a special place in the world today.  And I would disagree with former President Obama, who said that America is exceptional to Americans in the same way Greece is exceptional to Greeks, and Germany is exceptional to Germans.

The vision of American exceptionalism can be found on any coin in your pocket.  Three basic concepts.  And no other country has these three.  In God we Trust, E Pluribus Unum, and Liberty.

In God we trust?  America was founded on the notion the God is the source of our values.  That’s why the Declaration of Independence says we have inalienable rights.  Not man given, not from humanism, not from great thinkers, but these rights have come from God.  No God, then rights can be taken away by government.  God is a central part of this country’s foundation.

 

E Pluribus Unum.  From the many, one.  We don’t care where you come from, or your color, creed, race or religion.  If you stand with us to build this country, then you are one of us.  From the many, one.

And finally, Liberty.  The French also endorse liberty as a basic right.  (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity).  But notice in the French version, freedom is adopted as a part of equality. Equality when you are born, and the right for government to give you equality as you grow old.  The difference in America is that we all agree we are born equal, but then we are on our own to make ourselves what we want.  Where you end up is your business.

Does anyone really feel that either national party has articulated a vision that makes America special?  Far from it, we are a country divided today.  Trump vs anti Trump, defund the police vs a crackdown on crime, right to abortion vs right to life, full gun rights vs gun restrictions, illegal aliens vs open borders, Red states vs blue states. 

There are those who say America’s great experiment with democracy has run its course. I disagree. Our nation needs a much broader consensus of our culture and our belief. Voters are hungry for leadership and for someone or some party to define the “Why” of being an American.  That would be the best way to have our nation truly stay on the right side of History.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also look over a list of books he has published at www.thelisburnpress.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OVERREACH BY FBI AGAINST TRUMP!

Monday, August 15^th, 2022

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

OVERREACH BY FBI AGAINST TRUMP!

Was the FBI raid on President Trump’s Florida home justified? And even if the former president had in his possession classified documents, was it necessary for his private residence to be invaded by swat team FBI agents holding AK 15 assault rifles like they were swooping in on drug dealers or mafia dons?

No former US. president in American history has ever been treated in such a manner. One can imagine how America is being ridiculed worldwide by the nation’s adversaries. “America is no different from any other banana republic or dictatorship” they are saying.  “Destroy you opponent once he or she leaves office.”  To say our democracy has suffered a huge creditability loss would be an understatement.

We don’t know at this time what efforts the Biden administration made to get any supposedly classified documents back from Trump. Remember that when he was in office, he had the power to both classify and declassify such information.  Is this little more than a records dispute? Did the Attorney General, or even better yet President Biden, reach out to Trump in order to reach some accommodation?

Both former Presidents Obama and Clinton removed from the White House thousands of documents and even furniture when they left office. The National Archives requested and retrieved numerous items form both former chief executives.

Needless to say, the FBI raid has unleashed a torrid of criticism from Trump supporters as well as a number of more natural legal experts. "A raid is supposed to be a last resort, but this administration has used the weaponization of the justice system against its political enemies," Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz observed last week. " (The FBI has) arrested people, denied them bail, put them in handcuffs – used all kinds of techniques that are not usually applied to American citizens, and I just hope this raid has a justification.”

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic writer, noted Friday on “Morning Joe that “‘The F.B.I. is the enemy, the F.B.I. is the Gestapo, the F.B.I. is the enemy within.’”  Nichols also observed that this was the same criticism used against the FBI during liberal attacks against the agency in the 1968 Viet Nam protests. 

 

Actually, Trump may relish in this FBI overreach.  He has solidified his conservative base and has gained widespread sympathy from Republicans across the nation. Louisiana’s senior U.S. Senator John Kennedy lamented: “Given the (FBI’s) history, I think many fair- minded Americans are going to say: “Wait a minute, this looks political; this looks personal. This doesn’t look like an aberration; this is beginning to look like a pattern,” Kennedy told Fox news.

 

Whatever comes out from the Trump document seizure, the fact remains that the FBI has a major credibility problem. Take a look at just some of the newspaper headlines across America.

“Evidence Suggests a Massive Scandal is Brewing at the FBI”-New York Post

“Wanted: An Honest FBI” -Wall Street Journal

“The Massive Case of Collective Amnesia at the FBI”-National Public Radio

“Scandal Ridden FBI-Must Be Abolished”-Boston Globe

“The FBI Is in Crisis. It’s Worse Than You Think”-Time Magazine

History shows that from the creation of the FBI under President Teddy Roosevelt, the agency has been used, misused, and by their own actions, insubordinate in many administrations. How long could we talk about the shenanigans of J. Edger Hoover, Watergate, Deep Throat, Sen. Joe McCarthy, investigations of Martin Luther King, and LBJ having the FBI harass Vietnam protesters, and major FBI failings in Louisiana?

Time will tell the seriousness of the charges against President Trump. But there is little doubt about the continuing justifiable attacks by respected voices against the FBI.  Our nation needs and deserves much better than it is receiving form the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The initials FBI should not stand for Federal Bureau of Incompetence!

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also look over a list of books he has published at www.thelisburnpress.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARE BASEBALL AND POLITICS INTERTWINED?

Thursday, August 4^th, 2022

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

ARE BASEBALL AND POLITICS INTERTWINED?

We are halfway through the current baseball season, and congressional elections are just a few months away.  So just what is America’s favorite pastime? Is it politics or baseball? Politics has always been a major spectator sport, particularly here in my home state of Louisiana. But don’t sell baseball short. Not only has baseball been around longer than any of America’s professional team sports, the game’s highs and lows have been injected in national politics almost from the sport’s inception.

Now I’m a diehard baseball fan. I grew up in St. Louis, and lived next door to the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, the great former Cardinals shortstop Marty Marion. I was in his box the Sunday afternoon back on May 2, 1954, when Stan the Man Musial hit five home runs on the same day in a doubleheader.  I was hooked and have been a baseball fan ever since.

The problems of major league baseball have often served as a mirror image of the problems facing America. Its history is both a reflection of this country’s fears and ignorance, and its hopes and promises. Like almost any other cultural phenomenon of such prominence, baseball has served as solace and as a poke to our conscience.

In 1948, the major leagues faced the problem of segregation earlier than the politicians in Washington DC did.  Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and won the rookie of the year award in his first season. It took court cases and sit-ins to get the attention of our political representatives to follow suit. 

A few years back, the Tampa Bay Rays were the Cinderella team that went from “worst to first,” winning the American League pennant. Maybe it had something to do with their name. They used to be called the “Devil Rays” and their record was terrible. As soon as they dropped the word “Devil,” they became victorious overnight. Is it baseball pure and simple, or is the Religious Right involved?

Maybe it’s impossible to get away from campaigns and politics by focusing on baseball, but I’m going to give it a shot.  The Fox network will carry many major league games this season. You know — as in “Fox News.” Will their commentators argue they should call some home runs out if they are too far to the left?  And I guess you can’t blame the Democrats from bemoaning that every time someone steals a base, they get reminded of the 2000 presidential election.

There is also a lesson to be learned from Babe Ruth as congress considered limiting executive pay and bonuses of corporations who received bailout money. When the Babe was asked how he could justify making more money than the President, he shrugged off the question by answering, “I had a better year.”  There is another favorite baseball saying that “The difference between politics and baseball is that in baseball, when you are caught stealing, you’re out.”

 Another difference between these two spectator sports is the sense of optimism that baseball brings every spring. The crack of the bat, a pop fly against a blue sky, and the green grass seem to offer a sense of renewal. It harkens back to the essence of youth and heroes of the past, and you feel that almost anything is possible in the coming season.  But in today’s political climate, there is little thought of great statesmen and principled political figures.  Political courage today is too often defined by poll watching and sticking a wet finger to the wind.

So when the TV remote offers a choice of politics or baseball, it’s an easy decision. I’ll choose the great American pastime every time.  It’s baseball hands down.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also look over a list of books he has published at www.thelisburnpress.com.