Tag: inequality

(Student) debt nation

Excerpt

According to the nonprofit organization Student Debt Crisis, our collective student debt as a nation is currently at $1,740,184,278,148. Education, the theoretical equalizer, has turned into yet another way that deep inequality remains entrenched in our country — as well as a partisan flashpoint. After Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, Joe Biden announced a proposal for expanded student loan forgiveness in a bid to reel in Sanders supporters. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump vetoed a major student loan forgiveness bill in May, dealing a blow to students who seek debt cancellation because they say colleges defrauded them.

Inequality + freedom

Excerpt

The great error of the contemporary left is to treat equality as the answer to everything, to think, speak, and act as if more equality necessarily means a better society. Everyone on the right sees that this is a fatal error. The great error of the contemporary right, or at least its great temptation, is to treat freedom as the answer to every public question, to think, talk, and act as if a freer society is always a better one. Part of the job of traditional conservatives is to resist that error of the right, to remind their fellow citizens that freedom is not the answer to every political question, not the solution to every political problem.