College students graduate with great abysses of debts, yet they have almost no promising job prospects to pay these off. But voters can help lift the burden of post-graduation debt by electing candidates that will help improve the job market and avoid partisan lines that could bring on at least a two-year stalemate.
A Boston College law student recently asked the dean of the law school if he could get a full tuition refund if he left a semester early, according to coverage by ABC News. The student’s wife is pregnant with their first child and he is unable to find a job, which makes him apprehensive about being able to provide for his family and pay off student loans.
“With fatherhood impending, I go to bed every night terrified of the thought of trying to provide for my child AND paying off my J.D., and resentful at the thought that I was convinced to go to law school by empty promises of a fulfilling and remunerative career,” the student wrote in a letter to the dean.
The sheer financial burden of attending law school is enormous. Coupled with loans and providing for a family, it would seem almost as unbearable as this situation. He refers to the debt as “being the size of a mortgage,” but it provides the students “no tangible asset which we could try to sell or turn in to the bank.”
This is not only unfortunate, but also downright discouraging. This man had a dream at one point of being a lawyer, and now refers to it as a future with “empty promises.”
This story illustrates the trouble our country is in. However, we have control of our future on Election Day.
The candidates that we elect will be in charge of putting our people back to work.
The GOP is poised to take back one, if not both, chambers of Congress. If this is the voters’ will, then so be it.
But, before you head to the polls, I would like to offer a caveat. Many of the candidates running for office are Tea Party candidates (including the Republican candidate for the congressional seat in Congressional District 5, where ASU is housed). These candidates seem bent on bringing our government to a grinding halt. Not only this, but the GOP leadership is pandering to this extreme viewpoint.
“Look, the time to get along is over. We’ve got a cavalry of men and women headed to Washington, D.C., that are going to stand with us,” said House Republican Conference chairman Mike Pence, R-Indiana, in a radio interview. He also cautioned that the GOP will have “no compromise on stopping runaway spending, deficits, and debt. There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare.”
In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama became President Obama because of his promises to work across the aisle and respect all viewpoints. But, oh, how times change in two years. It is 2010, and the GOP might be able to pull off a sweep because it’s campaigning on partisanship.
The problem is not necessarily with the Republican Party, but the extremity that a solid majority of its members embrace. While it once used to be a respectable party filled with moderates like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Delaware, these three open-minded moderates are now a dying breed. Senators and representatives have not been scared to reach out to their Democratic counterparts in a time of extreme partisanship.
When you head to the polls, vote with a bipartisan future in mind; a future that contains candidates who are not afraid to acknowledge that both parties are made up of patriots who want America to succeed. A Congress full of legislators unwilling to compromise will result in a prolonged recession, as we will not be able to pass bills that address the problems that could bring this nation to its knees.
So while voting today, do not vote out of spite toward the GOP or Obama and Congressional Democrats. Casting a vote based on hate will only lead to more bickering.
Instead, elect candidates that have an open mind and a level head. If we move forward as one, we will surely overcome what will be seen as just another trying period in the history of America. If either side decides to go at it alone, divided we will fall.
This election could either leave us with a slate of legislators who will have no part in compromise or it could leave us with senators and representatives who really do want to work together to address unemployment, education and immigration among other things.
Perhaps preaching cooperation in a partisan era is heresy or maybe it is just common sense. That will be for the American voters to decide.
Andrew can be reached at andrew.hedlund@asu.edu
