A common opinion among Americans is that asking or expecting the government to help pay for certain stuff is somehow bad and leads to laziness and dependency on handouts and etc. This idea seems to be especially true when the topic is education and healthcare, two things that are essential to the overall success of a society. It does not seem to be applied as regards tax cuts or subsidies to large corporations or the wealthiest.
Look: a government isn't just there to raise an army and collect taxes. For example, the US Constitution states that our government is of, by, and FOR the people. It's supposed to do stuff that benefits the society, including passing laws, building roads, running schools, and a zillion other things.
A major flaw in the American argument is that education benefits the individual, e.g.:
The beneficiaries are largely paying their own way! They're adults, personal responsibility for one's own well being SHOULD be paid for largely on one's own! I do believe we're getting somewhere!
is the American rallying cry that leads to a place where people are out for themselves and whoever they decide they should help. This gives us lopsided results and terrible inequalities. Plus, it lets us end up with funding for public schools being cut, and with those funds being replaced by middle to upper class parents. Working class and impoverished parents can't afford that, and the schools become unequal. This is a good example of where this philosophy has failed. Well, for some.
Another is that all this personal responsibility has taken us to ~$1.4 trillion in student loan debt. That money is going to banks. The debt is keeping people from buying houses, cars, clothing, vacations, and a long list of other stuff. It's damaging the economy.
When a person needs 6 or even 8 years to get through college because he has to work part-time at a low-wage job, that's time that could have spent been contributing to the science or the arts, and the economy. Had the person been employed at a good job for those 2-4 years, he'd have had more cash for spending and paid more taxes. But instead, he's yoked to 10-15 years of debt. being a serf isn't in my definition of "personal responsibility." Plus, multiply that one guy by 45,000,000 loan holders, and a fortune has been squandered. But the banks and the colleges sure must be happy.
Hey, let's raise fees another 5%!I'm at a loss to understand a philosophy that claims "pay your own way for college because...personal responsibility," but that doesn't object to guvmint funding for roads, streetlights, the police, libraries, the FAA, the fire department, the sewer system, and so on. Not to mention K-12 schools.
While I don't think college should be free for everyone, I think that tuition at any public tertiary institution should essentially be doable on the proceeds of a low-wage 12-week summer job with maybe 5-8 weekly hours thrown in during the school year. But unfortunately, the US is and has been a short-sighted nation and I suspect that this argument will mostly fall on deaf ears. Because...
small guvmint (except for the programs that benefit me). Because...
personal responsibility (especially as regards to lowering my tax bill by cutting programs that I don't need). Because...
nanny states are bad (except for intrusive laws and bad lawmaker behavior that I happen to agree with).
The bottom line is that we undermine the entire nation when we yoke millenials (and now the next group) to crushing debt. A society is made out of the people who inhabit it. If we want our society to succeed, individual people need to succeed. That can't happen if millions are yoked to debt and have to pick 2 of the following three each month: 1) buy needed medicine or medical care, 2) pay rent, 3) buy food.
Our priorities are a mess, and I'm sorry that so many Americans buy into ideas that are essentially destroying this society, in order to enrich a very tiny sliver of people. Everyone will suffer eventually, but again, people are too short-sighted to see that. Sad!
