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I understand your sentiment, but realize even if we wanted to, swinging anything to government subsidy would tax us to death. Our healthcare AND university pri
by axaxs 9y ago
I understand your sentiment, but realize even if we wanted to, swinging anything to government subsidy would tax us to death. Our healthcare AND university prices are ridiculous by any standards. You can't switch that to government controlled overnight. Where do you even start? Prices HAVE to come way down before the conversation happens, and those profiting ensure those conversations never happen.
To put another way, let's take a doctor. He can make a huge salary, but also has a huge student loan debt to pay off (potentially high 6 figure). You can't just slash their salaries and stick them with that education bill. And you can't slash education prices as long as they're more or less private. These two go hand in hand and are going to continue to plague us in costs.
- lz400 9y agoCertainly not overnight but you can start somewhere. Look, it works in most of the first world. Many comments are trying so hard to convince us that "in America is different" from their armchairs. It's like people try to convince themselves it's impossible. I truly think both for education and healthcare (both a disaster in the world's first economy vs the rest of the first world) if because those systems in the US are for-profit. These are examples of things that should be government run. How do you get there? Well, I won't say it's not hard especially with how politics are nowadays. But it has to be possible.
- axaxs 9y agoYour last couple sentences sum it up nicely. Anything is possible, but not in our political climate. The two sides think of each other as mentally ill, and are to the point of violence. I hope it calms down, but in my lifetime it's only gotten worse. That needs to be fixed before we can get anything good for the nation done.
- lz400 9y agoThe best starting point is for people to agree that student loans are way past stupid at this point and a solution is needed and other countries seem to be doing well with gov run education. If everyone thought like that, things would probably follow. Politics are reactive, not proactive.
- prawn 9y agoWhat incentive is there for a politician to do the right thing on the whole? They need a broad professional support base (party) to succeed in the American voting system, which means they toe the line or go nowhere. And there are lobbyists (at best) pressuring or forcing their hand on decisions where so much money is at stake (private prisons, healthcare, education, etc). You could say that a real character or charismatic leader may emerge from outside the political system and slowly convince people to change things, but the US just got the former and I don't know that it's working very well. Brings to mind this recent story about Dwayne Johnson as a potential candidate: http://www.gq.com/story/dwayne-johnson-for-president-cover http://www.gq.com/story/dwayne-johnson-for-president-cover