It has been a while since Obama promised to give us free things, but he has stepped up his game this time with the prospect of free community college.
As usual, all of the normal arguments against government handouts apply in this case, however, this proposal is exceptionally hazardous. In most cases of government giveaways, the gift does not carry the promise of future rewards. If you give someone free healthcare, you may cure them, keep them alive or just indulge their unhealthy lifestyles, but no one assumes that the free healthcare will result in them living forever or gaining super powers. Give someone a free phone? They can make phone calls and send texts, but they have no assumption of using it as a teleporter or time machine. The reason that free college is dangerous is because it comes with the implied concept that you will have a higher paying job once you graduate, and this is something the government cannot guarantee. Of course, we have already made it incredibly easy to attend college and avoid paying the bills. This has driven tuition costs almost as high as the outstanding student loan debt. President Obama’s simple solution is to just stop charging people to go to college, which might in a very simple manner of thinking resolve some of the student debt problem, by skipping the step of the students even pretending that they will pay back the loans.
With all the problems facing the nation and especially President Obama, this seems like an odd issue to suddenly get behind. Even more so when you look at the state of the economy. At no point during the past few years of stagnant economic growth has the problem been that we didn’t have enough college graduates. In fact, the exact opposite is true. We are experiencing record levels of people leaving the work force and people working in jobs that they are over qualified to hold. The problem is a general lack of jobs and growth, not the education level of our workers. With the explosion of student loan debt and the lack of job prospects, the problem seems to be that too many people are choosing to spend their time in college and racking up debt for jobs that no longer exist. Instead of focusing on improving the economy, Obama’s solution is to spend more money on entitlement programs with the promise of a brighter future funded by taxes.
The truly scary part of Obama’s proposal is that it sets up the framework for mass disaffection with society. As already pointed out, going to college comes with the implication that you will receive a better job and better future once you finish. Giving this away for free gives people the belief that they are entitled to a better future and that it is society’s job to provide it. However, the reality is that a significant amount of the people that would attend college under this program would be no better off once they have the diploma in their hand. Having sacrificed work experience for classroom time they will find themselves in line behind those who spent that time working. We are already living during a time when the feeling of resentment in underemployed college graduates working at McDonalds or other menial jobs is already causing small scale social disruptions here in this country. However, in places like Greece and other struggling countries, these types of situations have already exploded and are only getting worse.
A more conspiracy minded type person might believe that Obama is purposely attempting to build up a large portion of the population that is poor, over educated and angry, making them more suitable to Far Left theories like Communism. That may be, but the simpler answer is that Obama is a foolish, bleeding heart liberal who believes that every care should be seen to by the Federal Government, regardless of the long term consequences.
Categories: Blog Posts
Stovepipe Sentinel 
Leave a comment