Student Loan Debt Crisis More Pressing Issue Than Minimum Wage Debate

All the recent corporate press coverage of the minimum wage debate distracts from the issue that is really truly responsible for the slow recovery of the economy, and that is student loan debt.

If this country's leadership wanted to be responsible, they would know to address the question of the debt level carried by Americans before working to increase their incomes; even though without a doubt, the issue of raising the minimum wage is long overdue.

We The People are waiting for redress regarding student loan debt forgiveness and increasing the minimum wage.

There is indeed a proper order to dealing with these things.

To address the matter of student loan forgiveness before increasing the minimum wage would mean having 100% of the minimum wage increase would flow back into the American economy.

Increasing the minimum first and then working on student loan forgiveness would amount to students getting a bump in pay, only to have a percentage of that increase go back to the government as a bigger Income Based Repayment on their federal student loan.

In addition, without a change in the tax code, the increase in the minimum wage, in both scenarios, also results in a bigger tax bill from the government, making for a double slap in the face if the minimum wage were increased before student loans are forgiven.

Surely, all this must be obvious to the smart men and women who run our government, and so they must be planning to propose some form of student loan debt forgiveness imminently before taking up the issue of raising the minimum wage.

Unless the intention of the government is to continue to drag their feet on student loan debt forgiveness because of the profound profitability of student loans to the government.

Whether intentional or not, the now $1.2 Trillion Student Loan Debt Crisis is THE most important issue before Congress, to which there is no further postponement of action.

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."   - Franklin D. Roosevelt

And as a democracy, the threat to our freedom and democracy is not from foreign terrorists and invaders, but the threat is the ignorance and illiteracy of its citizens.

FDR had planned to enshrine Americans' Right to Education in a Second Bill of Rights.

There can be no democracy without declaring that education is an inherent human right of its citizens. Therefore, student loans were not only immoral, but illegal because it denies American students their Right to Education, a right that Franklin D. Roosevelt had planned to enshrine in a Second Bill of Rights, as the Allied Powers did in rebuilding the governments for the defeated Germans, Italians, and Japanese. FDR unfortunately passed away before having the chance to do so.

Therefore, we must forgive all student loan debt. Or admit that we are no longer a free democracy.