“DEANDOGGLE”
Howard Dean has proposed a federal program that would provide teachers and other “public servants” with some very generous student-loan terms. The loan payments would be capped at 7% of their salary and the balance would be forgiven after 10 years. To see how generous (with your tax money) this really is, consider this scenario: A prospective teacher borrows $25,000 in Stafford loans during the course of her undergraduate studies. Upon graduation, she accepts a position with a starting salary of $35,000 per year. For the sake of this simplistic exercise, I will assume that her salary increases steadily at a rate of 3% per year and that the student loan interest rate holds at its current 3.2% (highly unlikely). At the end of 10 years, she’d have $1,685 in “forgiveness.” If, instead, she borrows $30,000 we’d eat $8,568 of the loan. If she borrows the $46,000 maximum, $30,593. Sense a pattern here? Above a certain threshold (around $23,800), her payments are fixed no matter how much she borrows. That’s a gift of $22,200 from the US Treasury. And, she doesn’t have to use it for educational expenses. Student loans can be used for anything. Howard Dean just bought every new teacher a Taurus SES with your money.
4 Responses to ““DEANDOGGLE””
 Comment by Andrea November 14th, 2003 at 5:04 pm |
I’ll still vote for him if he’s the Democratic candidate. I’ve decided to vote for anyone but Bush no matter what. Homeschoolers care about freedom and liberty and I don’t understand why the vast majority support Bush who has done more to take away our personal freedoms and privacy with his Patriot Act, etc. than any Democrat would ever dream of. |
 Comment by Daryl Cobranchi November 14th, 2003 at 5:37 pm |
I’m no fan of Pres. Bush, either. His economic policies (particularly regarding the deficit) have been atrocious. That said, there is no way I could pull the lever for Dean. Do you really want a social worker visiting your bedside next time you give birth? And, God-forbid she finds out that you’re going to homeschool. You’d be on a “watch” list as a potential abuser before you ever brought the baby home. No, if Dean is the Democratic candidate I’ll either vote straight Libertarian as a protest or just sit out the election. There really is no law that forces one to vote, and it’s not difficult to make a case that a principled “non-vote” is more valuable in a democracy than holding one’s nose to pick the lesser of two “weasels.” |
 Comment by Skip Oliva November 14th, 2003 at 6:30 pm |
While I do not support much of the Patriot Act, I’m grown tired of people using it as proof the Bush administration’s harming civil liberties. By this, I mean that while there are a number of areas where personal freedom has come under attack from the government (such as antitrust law, my area of concern), there is little substantive evidence of genuine Patriot Act abuses; that deals more with *potential* threats. Where are the civil libertarians when businesses have their rights stripped away? Or when a new entitlement program is created? |
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Comment by Andrea November 14th, 2003 at 8:59 pm |
I like your ideas, Daryl and I’ll look more closely at the candidates before I make a final decision. Funny you should say that about the social worker though. We discussed that here before. Remember, I did get invaded by social workers after the birth of both my children. However, every social worker type that I’ve mentioned homeschooling to was very positive about it and some said they were thinking of doing it themselves. Perhaps our schools are worse here and even the social workers are jumping ship. |