7 minute read
OPINION
THE MESA TRIBUNE | AUGUST 28, 2022
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Student debt giveaway underscores bigger problem
BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ
Tribune Columnist
Early Aug. 24, President Joe Biden doddered to the White House microphone and announced the forgiveness of an estimated $300 billion in student loan debt.
The plan, should it survive court challenges, will wave a magic wand at $10,000 in debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year and up to $20,000 for Pell grant recipients.
The reaction? The usual partisan theatrics.
Liberal Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren nearly broke both hands applauding Biden: “This is one of the biggest acts of consumer debt relief in American history, and it will directly help hardworking people who borrowed money to go to school because they didn’t come from a family that could write a big check.”
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was apoplectic: “President Biden’s student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt, and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our Armed Forces in order to avoid taking on debt. This policy is astonishingly unfair.”
My reaction? It was what kids today would abbreviate as “SMH,” for shaking my head.
It’s all the response I can muster anymore for the predictable screeching that arises whenever the government – local, state or federal – does anything.
Depending on the decisionmaker, whether it’s a MAGA hat Trump acolyte or someone who worships at the altar of Old Joe Santa of the Left, forever giving away cash, record inflation be damned, it’s yet another moment to exhort or complain, so long as you root, root, root for the home team.
Here’s a thought that borrows another social media acronym: How about you all STFU and spare the rest of us your talking points?
The rest of us being the approximately 250 million Americans not registered as Republicans or Democrats and/or the 150 million Americans who didn’t vote for either Biden or Donald Trump in 2020.
Why such hard feelings? It’s the glaring hypocrisy.
In 2008, when Lehman Brothers, AIG and Wall Street irresponsibility crashed the American economy, McConnell led the way on a $700 billion bailout of the rich, which he lauded as “one of the finest moments in the history of the Senate.”
And Warren, who’s rarely met a government giveaway she didn’t like, didn’t celebrate Pres. Trump’s $2 trillion CARES Act spending spree, which included $500 billion in checks for individuals and $350 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans to business owners – including all sorts of millionaires who, uh, maybe didn’t need the cash.
After a day of back and forth in the media – and a few text messages from friends celebrating or attacking Biden’s decision – I found myself transfixed by a moment that crystallizes the entire argument.
Towards the end of Biden’s 20 minutes of self-congratulation, a reporter shouted a reasonable question at the man:
“Is this unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans?”
Biden, almost to the door, turned back to deliver a one-liner. “Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multi-billiondollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair? What do you think?”
It was the type of explanation that never would have flown with my parents, who worked hard to help me pay the college
seeLEIBOWITZ page 19
Recalling the transformation of the food pyramid
BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist
Whatever the history of ancient Egypt, there’s one “pyramid” that’s not shrouded in mystery.
It’s the “food pyramid,” which attracted quite a bit of controversy following its “construction.”
Baby Boomers can be forgiven if they carry a vague recollection of this dietary diagram from the scratchy, sprocket threaded, 16-millimeter monochromatic motion pictures featured during their school days. Actually, “official” recognition of the food pyramid did not occur until 1992. That’s when the U.S. Department of Agriculture introduced its own version, alternatively called the “Food Guide Pyramid” or the “Eating Right Pyramid.”
Of course, Washington being Washington, that development was not met with wide-spread unanimity – but at least the disagreements about “eating right” didn’t break down along the traditional political lines of left versus right. Instead, disputes developed over the federal approach to nutritional “multilevel marketing.”
The USDA was all about inclusion at the base of the pyramid, grouping bread, cereal, rice, and pasta together, suggesting six to 11 daily servings. On the next level, vegetables and fruits shared elevated status, with guidance of three to five servings of veggies, and two to four helpings of fruit.
The penultimate placements belonged to milk, cheese and yogurt on one side; meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts on the other…with both groupings listing suggested servings of two to three daily.
And, at the top, what most nutritionists in the early ’90’s considered the “bottom feeders” among consumables: fats, sweets, and oils…with the admonition to “use sparingly.”
Critics were unsparing in their scorn.
The most common complaint dealt with style as well as substance. Americans associate success with the top…not the bottom. Accordingly, the advice of the Agriculture Department was to “invert the pyramid.” Adding “fat to the fire” was a failure to recognize research extolling the benefits of unsaturated fats in weight loss, as well the lowering of blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
But blood pressure levels increased on the banks of the Potomac with accusations of “lactose tolerance”—allegations that the dairy lobby “milked” the benefits of the pyramid with larger visuals that made their products easier to recognize.
USDA bureaucrats recognized they had created problems with the pyramid, but like most government workers, they were slow to embrace needed changes.
Finally, in 2011, the pyramid transmogrified into a “personalized plate.” Now, “My Plate” offers official federal food guidance…and has for over a decade.
Meantime, everyday Americans seem to encounter new “nutritional studies”— well, everyday. That includes one from the University of Michigan that was curiously released one month after Independence Day.
Did you enjoy a hot dog on July 4? An article in the Aug. 4 edition of “The U.S. Sun” claims you might have cut more than a half hour from your life span. Researchers in Ann Arbor claim that summertime staple may put nails in your coffin 36.3 minutes sooner that a non-hot dog eater.
Scientists conducting the study said they calculated the direct influence of seeHAYWORTH page 19
6,000 various meals, snacks and drinks.
They claim that if someone who eats beef and processed pork products would exchange just 10 percent of their caloric intake for plant-based food, those “enlightened eaters” could gain an extra 48 minutes of life per day. No word on who financed the study, but it sounds as if the U of M has engaged in dubious scholarship to promote its school colors: “Eat maize so you won’t turn blue!” Rightly skeptical folks could reflexively suggest that the research is flawed, since it “compares apples to oranges,” in a manner of speaking.
And “wrong eating” Egyptologists might point out that the pyramids they study were built as burial sites for the pharaohs.
The takeaway?
Enjoy what you like in moderation.
Be sure to exercise and get the sleep you need.
And realize that, despite our best (or worst) efforts, we all will one day encounter the same fate as the pharaohs – without a grand pyramid to house our remains, or a “food pyramid” to follow, thankfully.
costs scholarships did not cover. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” my mother liked to say.
Then again, my mother never held public office in this country, because she had common sense and disliked rewarding poor decision-making, two qualities that would have rendered her unfit to serve in 21st century politics.
Share Your Thoughts: Send your letters on local issues to: pmaryniak@ timeslocalmedia.com
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