VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!
BOOK:…..TRAGIC!
THE DEATH GAP: INEQUALITY IS KILLING AMERICA!
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!
CALL IT OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS OR TRUMPERNOMICS FOR THE SUPER
RICH!
Tennessee punishes workers who default on student loans, ignores politicians’ fines
By
Warren Duzak
28 November 2017
The state of Tennessee punishes the working class in its struggles
to secure an education and a decent job, but looks the other way when it comes
to election law violators who fail to pay fines.
The New York Times recently
pegged Tennessee as the nation’s most aggressive state in penalizing those who
default on student loans. Nurses and teachers lose their licenses and their
jobs if they fall behind on payments, and the future is anything but bright for
those now in school.
More than 44 million Americans hold a total of $1.4 trillion in
student debt, a sum greater than total US credit card debt or automobile loans.
Student loan debt could soon rival the total debt for home mortgages, with an
average payoff time for a student loan approaching 20 years.
As the WSWS observed in a recent perspective, “Today’s recent graduate can look
forward to at least half a lifetime of penury as the cost of an undergraduate
degree. And for those who can’t afford more than the interest every month, it’s
a lifetime.”
Daily more than 3,000 people for many different reasons, including
health problems, family troubles or a lack of work, default on their federal
student loans.
But while they punish those unable to pay their student loan debt,
a forgiving Tennessee state legislature, state election officials and even the
state’s attorney general’s office conveniently overlook those owing election
violation fines, including those imposed for failing to report all money
donated to their campaigns or committees.
The Tennessean reported
that the state has allowed election law fines totaling $1 million for 220
individuals and dozens of political action committees to go uncollected for
decades. Some of the fines are 26 years old.
Meanwhile struggling workers who borrowed money to go to school
and then stumble cannot evade the state apparatus.
“Tennessee is one of the most
aggressive states at revoking licenses, the records show,” the Times reported.
“From 2012 to 2017, officials reported more than 5,400 people to professional
licensing agencies. Many—nobody knows how many—lost their licenses.”
In Tennessee and 19 other states, workers pay back their student
loans…. or else.
The Times led its
lengthy report with the case of Shannon Otto of Nashville, Tennessee. Otto lost
her nursing license when she developed epileptic seizures and was unable to
work. With no income, she failed to make her student loan payments. The state
responded by suspending her hard-earned nursing license.
When she was able to get treatment, got her seizures under control
and was ready to go back to work, she was unable to pay the $1,500 the
Tennessee Board of Nursing demanded to reinstate her license.
“I absolutely loved my job, and it seems unbelievable that I can’t
do it anymore,” Ms. Otto said.
The Times notes:
“Firefighters, nurses, teachers, lawyers, massage therapists, barbers,
psychologists and real estate brokers have all had their credentials suspended
or revoked.” It added, however, that “determining the number of people who have
lost their licenses is impossible because many state agencies and licensing
boards don’t track the information.”
According to the publication the licenses of at least 308 nurses
and 223 teachers in Kentucky have been revoked or flagged for review. In
Louisiana, 87 nurses now face losing their jobs unless they can become current
on loan payments.
However, unlike working class students, those who run for office
are generally not worried about money nor are they pursued for their refusal to
pay off fines. The more well off—lawyers and morticians have been
disproportionately represented in the legislature—finance their own campaigns
or readily find the businessman or corporate sponsor with deep pockets to
underwrite them.
How other states handle election law fines is not apparent, but
Tennessee waits years to try to collect fines from the privileged group of
Tennesseans who represent the ruling class in the legislature.
Even as the state reluctantly goes after delinquent fines, it does
not go after all that they owe, much less demand interest or revocation of
professional licenses.
The state’s Attorney General’s office is considering an agreement
to cut the fine in half for two legislators, one who owed more than $40,000 and
another who owed $10,000.
In a revealing comment, the Tennessean reported:
“No one clarified why the attorney general and registry decided to accept such
payment agreements…”
While elected officials in Nashville are merciless in their
efforts to squeeze money out of former students for creditors, those in
Washington D.C. find money for tax cuts for the rich and for corporations by
slashing educational benefits for those who need them most.
A tax plan proposed and approved by the House of Representatives,
should the Senate approve it and President Trump sign it, would:
· Raise the cost of attending college over the next ten years by
$65 billion, according to an estimate by the American Council on Education
(ACE).
· Repeal a tax deduction for interest payments on student loans
that saves borrowers $625 annually for borrowers making less than $65,000 a
year, or for married couples making less than $120,000. In 2015, 12 million
people filed for this deduction.
· Require that tuition waivers for 145,000 graduates who work as
teaching assistant be taxed as income.
To add insult to injury, President
Trump is proposing to abolish subsidized federal loans and institute a single
program for all federal lending for students. Such a change would result in a
single income-based repayment plan at 12.5 percent of adjusted gross
income .
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a TRILLION DOLLARS
in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created
more debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also
had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s
terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
AMERICA’S SUICIDE:
PATHOLOGICAL
VIOLENCE, OPIOID ADDICTION, STAGGERING POVERTY, SOARING JOBLESSNESS FOR LEGALS
AND POVERTY FOR ALL….. While the rich only get SUPER RICH!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS to serve the
filthy rich
The same period has seen a massive growth of social inequality,
with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American society to an
extent not seen since the 1920s.
“This study follows
reports released over the past several months documenting rising mortality
rates among US workers due to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant
mortality, an overall leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap
between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of income earners compared to
those at the top.”
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