By Richard McCarty

Our educational industrial complex is broken, and swift reform is needed. College costs continue to rise much faster than inflation, and too many students are plowing themselves into debt and wasting years of their lives pursuing pointless degrees. Upon leaving college, these students are often surprised to discover that their degrees have little value. Of course, most colleges are liberal indoctrination centers, where conservative voices are few and often drowned out.

It is time for the federal government – and state and local governments – to stop picking winners and losers. Just as it is unfair for the federal government to recognize the American Bar Association as the sole accreditor of law schools and allow it to erect unnecessary hurdles to keep people from pursuing law degrees; just as it is indefensible for governments to subsidize unreliable solar and wind projects that drive up electricity bills; just as it is illegitimate for state governments to license hair braiders and interior designers to lock competitors out of the field; just as it is improper for the federal government to grant immunity to credit reporting agencies in spite of their negligence and incompetence; just as it is wrong for governments to deny poor people due process and allow predatory towing companies to sell their cars when they cannot afford exorbitant towing fees; and just as it is improper for states to subsidize moviemaking; so it is wrong for the federal government to shovel money to colleges via student loans.

To begin to address these problems, the federal government should do four things: privatize student loans once again, sell off its portfolio of student debt, allow students to discharge college debt in bankruptcy, tie lending rules to the value of a degree and require colleges to repay half of the remaining value of discharged loans.

In addition to the federal government ending its own college loans, but it should also sell off its student loan portfolio, which is nominally worth more than $1.5 trillion. Unfortunately, more than 40 percent of student loans are considered to be “in distress.” Furthermore, according to one estimate, 40 percent of student loan borrowers may be in default in just three short years. If for no other reason, the federal government should sell off its student loan portfolio to stem its losses on these toxic assets.

In addition, Congress should pass legislation to once again allow former students to discharge college debt in bankruptcy if a borrower is unable to find a decent job years after leaving college. In the past, borrowers were allowed to do this, but bankruptcy laws were tightened after lobbying by the banks. One reason that conservatives should support allowing the use of bankruptcy to discharge crushing student debt is to allow more young people to move on with their lives. Conservatives are often dismayed that more young people are not moving out of their parents’ homes, marrying, buying a home, and having children – things which tend to make one more conservative.

One of the reasons for this situation is student debt. Unfortunately, bankruptcy for student debt is seen by some as merely a way of letting borrowers off the hook, but it should really be viewed as a way of holding lenders accountable. For years, government lenders have happily loaned money to unserious students and those who wish to pursue frivolous degrees.

Bankruptcy for student debt, plus privatization, would encourage lenders to be more prudent with their money.

Prudent regulation would tie lending practices to the value of a degree and job prospects in chosen fields. The fewer jobs available in a chose major, the riskier the loan.

Finally, colleges should be required to cover half of the outstanding loan balances when alums discharge debt in bankruptcy, thereby sharing the risk with lenders. Because colleges have been admitting unserious students, coddling and indoctrinating students, offering junk degrees, and cranking out graduates who are unprepared for the real world. Requiring colleges to reimburse banks for a portion of their losses would motivate colleges to stop trying to enroll anyone and everyone with a pulse. It should also lead to colleges cutting costs, eliminating pointless degrees, and focusing less effort on training social justice warriors and more on helping the next generation build the economy.

One way or another, our country needs less college debt, fewer college graduates with worthless degrees, and more trade school graduates, more apprentices, and more entrepreneurs. These straightforward reforms should help advance these goals while making a positive difference for students, parents, and taxpayers.

Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

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President Trump right to act to make world safer from Iranian terror

Jan. 3, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the U.S. elimination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq:

“Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was on Iraq soil when he was targeted by U.S. forces, well within the President’s congressionally approved power to conduct the war in Iraq and his Article II constitutional authority to protect U.S. forces. Additionally, Solemni had been declared the leader of a terrorist organization carrying out attacks against U.S. interests in Iraq and around the world. The President acted well within the scope of law to authorize this action, and should be receiving universal praise rather than approbation by those too fearful to lead.”

To view online: https://getliberty.org/2020/01/president-trump-right-to-act-to-make-world-safer-from-iranian-terror/

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ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from the National Review, John Fund makes the case against the weak opponents in the Democratic primary Donald Trump faces in 2020:

Do Democratic Primary voters have the answer to Trump?

They’re not acting as if they do.

By John Fund

For a party whose most fervent activists are marinated in identity politics, Democrats could have been expected to gravitate toward a woman or a minority as their presidential candidate. Wrong.

Instead, a new CBS poll, which surveys a large 2,000-person sample of Iowa registered voters heading into that state’s February 3 caucus, shows the top three candidates — Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg — are all white guys.

The CBS poll shows a three-way tie among Democrats in Iowa, with Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Pete Buttigieg all tied at 23 percent support.

In New Hampshire, which votes eight days after Iowa, Sanders in another new CBS poll was in the lead, at 27 percent, just ahead of Biden, at 25 percent.

In the CBS poll, Elizabeth Warren is in fourth place in Iowa and third in New Hampshire, where her status as a senator from a neighboring state gives her an ID boost.

No one is counting out Warren, who in the RealClearPolitics average of all national polls still stands at third place, at 14 percent. But she has experienced a slow fade since she briefly tied Biden in national polls in October. Bernie Sanders has inherited much of her lost support.

Warren’s fundraising has also suffered. In the fourth quarter of 2019, her campaign raised $17 million. That’s a significant drop from her receipts in the third quarter, which were almost $25 million.

In a primary full of diverse candidates, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Consultants reported that actual voters in Democratic primaries were expected to be 37 percent minority and more than 60 percent female — an electorate seemingly perfect for a time of identity politics.

For example, Joe Biden’s initial strong support among black voters who fondly remember his loyal service to President Obama was supposed to fade once other candidates entered the spotlight. Both California senator Kamala Harris and New Jersey senator Cory Booker pulled out all the stops in playing the race card, but they’ve ended up as busted flushes. Harris has dropped out, and Booker is surviving on financial fumes.

Similarly, Julian Castro, a former Obama housing secretary, dropped out last week, claiming that Iowa’s 90 percent white population couldn’t give minority candidates a fair shake. It’s a curious argument given that the Iowa caucuses gave Barack Obama his first big win in the 2008 nomination race against Hillary Clinton and then voted twice for him in the general election. On the Republican side, the Washington Examiner reports that more than 60 percent of Republicans who cast ballots in the 2016 GOP caucuses voted for a black or Hispanic candidate: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio.

Each of the three leading candidates in Iowa are bunched at the top for a reason. Their supporters all believe that their man has the best chance of beating Donald Trump. Joe Biden’s fans see him as an experienced, safe choice. Bernie Sanders’s backers say that only the candidate with the sharpest possible contrast on the issues with President Trump will drive the voter turnout needed to beat the president. Pete Buttigieg’s supporters say the country is looking for a “fresh face,” someone who has no history of Beltway machinations. The 37-year-old Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., certainly provides that. At age 37, he is half the age of President Trump.

But the reason we’re likely to see a long race for the Democratic nomination is that each of the three candidates is having trouble convincing voters outside their base that they can win.

Only 38 percent of Democrats in Iowa and 36 percent in New Hampshire told CBS News they believed that Biden would probably beat Trump. The former vice president is seen as having performed unevenly in key debates. And, at age 77, he acts much older than the 73-year-old Trump.

As for Sanders, at age 78 and only three months past a heart attack, he also doesn’t present the most vigorous profile. More important, as the only candidate to openly declare himself a “democratic socialist,” his detractors are convinced he would have trouble winning over independent voters in November.

Pete Buttigieg, who served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan before entering politics, has no trouble convincing people he is vigorous. But he has no governing experience beyond being mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city (population 102,000). In addition, nervous Democratic consultants worry that religious black and Hispanic voters might not support a gay candidate.

Democratic-primary voters are apparently rejecting the siren call of politically correct activists, which is urging them to nominate someone in line with its new demographics. But these voters also don’t appear convinced that they have someone who can beat Donald Trump.

With ten months to go before the November election and despite all of his rhetorical excesses and credibility baggage, Donald Trump so far appears to be blessed with luck in who he has as opponents.

Permalink here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/2020-election-democratic-primary-voters-not-confident-their-candidate-can-beat-trump/

 

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