Hey, Obama! Can You Spare Some “Change”?
posted in News, `Roids |Hey, Obama! Can You Spare Some “Change”?
By Lloyd Kaufman w/ Justin A.Martell
President Obama’s America is a nation in which failed and bankrupt Wall Street insiders, car company moguls, and banks are rewarded billions of dollars of bailout money from the federal government. It looks like everyone is being bailed out except the most productive segment of our society; the bearers of the torch, the young, recently graduated students of America. If anyone needs a bailout, they do1.
As I slide down the razor blade of my senior life, I see a lot of bright, young people who are out of college graduates, and could be designing rocket engines for future expeditions into outer space or making the next Toxic Avenger! Instead, they are waiting tables and sweeping the floor to pay back their loans to private lenders like the Student Loan Marketing Association, better known as “Sallie Mae,”2 who are run by men my age who get huge salaries. I can’t tell you how many over qualified, brilliant young people I’ve met who are forced to take menial jobs to pay off these mountains of debt3. How demoralizing it must be for a 22 year-old recent grad to wake up everyday and have to wait on miserable old men such as myself, instead of curing cancer or inventing the next Troma Entertainment!…Well, strike that part about the next Troma Entertainment.
In 1968, I was able to go to Yale University for a grand total of $3,000, including room and board. Today, Yale costs $47,500 a year, but it’s not just Yale; even state universities like UCLA, which were created to offer free or low-cost education, are becoming obscenely expensive. So naturally, the astronomical increases in tuition at colleges and universities over the years have astounded me. It seems like the post-war, baby boomer generation, by virtue of their giant numbers, were able to make sure that they had top quality education at little or no expense, but have closed the door to accessible education behind them4. Over the years, there’s been constant blabbering and writing by the media with regard to this subject. For instance, the Wall Street Journal recently ran an opinion piece by the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, titled, “Banks Don’t Belong in the Student Loan Business.” In the article, Duncan whines that the banks get rich because the government guarantees student loans and that the banks should not be in the student loan business. He, and all the other suits in Washington, are missing the point entirely. The point is, there shouldn’t be student loans…Period. Education in America should be free! It should be an inalienable right!
If I remember correctly, one of the main reasons Obama got elected was because the students played such a huge role in promoting his promises of “change.” Those promises are now laughable, as many who played an instrumental role in Obama’s election are having their needs ignored in favor of bloated automobile companies that will probably go gas tank up in a short while, regardless of how much money is pumped into them by the federal government. It is these students who are the future of this country; the ones who are going to actually have to pull our great nation out of the hole in which it has sunk. How can they utilize their educations to better the country if they owe thousands upon thousands of dollars in money that they cannot pay?
So, dear reader, you may be saying, “Alright, Uncle Lloyd, we get it, the young people should be helped, but what’s the solution?” I’m glad you asked! Write to your congressman or congressgyno and tell them that as long as Obama is handing out billions of dollars of borrowed money, why not borrow a few billion more from China and implement a “Student Loan Forgiveness Policy.” Lifting this huge burden off of the backs of these young men and women would represent real change and would be a sincere measure of gratitude from our Commander in Chief to the idealistic, young people who put him in the oval office. Every American citizen should have the right to a fine education at no cost. Hey, if Italy can do it, we can do it!
Kaufman (left) tries to pass off the sores on his face as simple acne resulting from the stress of having to write this Lloyd’s Roid. However, his assistant, Justin Martell (right), reminds Kaufman that it could have something to do with the fact that he has just returned from one of his weekends in Bangkok.
Sources:
- Duncan, Arne. “Banks Don’t Belong in the Student Loan Business.” Wall Street Journal. 17 Dec. 2009.
[1] Them, and failed filmmakers like myself, but who gives a shit about us?
[2] It’s ironic that this hardball, nasty organization, which will harass graduates for years to come, has been given such a pleasant sounding, feminine name.
[3] Case in point, Justin Martell, a beautiful, young boy who has recently graduated from Franklin Pierce University. He’s got his whole life in front of him, but because of this giant debt hanging over him, he has tragically had to take a horrible, horrible job that’s worse than working at any fast food joint – working as my assistant.
[4] On a side note, access to affordable education is not the only thing that has been made not easily attainable for young people by the Baby Boomers. Many of these young people are also without health care. Meanwhile, money is taken out of their paychecks every week to take care of 89 year-old pieces of meat jerky, who do nothing to advance society, who are lying on a bed in Florida, and cost $80,000 a day to have their feeding tubes maintained.
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