quote:
Originally posted by USRufnex
I remember the draconian Gramm-Rudman budget cuts back in the late 80s. Yep, I remember having to work graveyard shifts at Village Inn to make up the difference when a Pell Grant disappeared and student loan discontinued.... so what have YOU sacrificed to reduce the federal deficit, Conan?
You just had to ask. Grab your barf bag and read on [
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How have I sacrificed? I've gotten up every morning for well over 20 years (okay, I might have slept in a time or two on a weekend to nurse a hang-over), gone to work, earned enough money to stay off the dole, worked harder to earn more every year, paid my share of taxes as dictated by various gov't authorities, saved, put money into the economy as a consumer and business owner, and contributed to charity with regularity. I've also always maintained my own health insurance when I didn't work somewhere that offered it, even when it was incredibly costly to insure a family of four when I was self-employed.
I'm also paying the lion's share of my daughter's college tuition from my hard-earned savings (she gets a small tuition credit for academic achievement which is about 10% of the total tuition r&b, books, etc., she will have an athletic scholarship next year which still will not cover all her expenses).
My second daughter will start college in a little less than three years. She's decided she wants to take cosmetology at tech her Jr. & Sr. year so she will have a skill she can use to help pay for college and have something she could always fall back on. That's on her insistence, not that of her parents.
There's been a lot of personal sacrifice in bringing up two members of the next generation as productive citizens who will not increase deficit by needing a lot of government assistance or funding.
According to popular sociological models, I should not being doing as well as I am nor be a contributor but rather than a taker. Broken home, college drop-out, drug use in my younger years. I even went through a period of near-homelessness and destitution, but never took public aid. I got myself into it and worked my way out of it. I worked when I was in college too, it's not easy. I'm not going to get into a big d**k contest over who had a harder educational career or upbringing with you though. Everyone has their own walk, it's not up to me to decide I had an easier or harder upbringing than someone else, as I've not walked in their moccasins.
I can honestly say, I don't know what it's like to have a Pell Grant cut off nor student loans curtailed. Personally, I think higher education and vocational training are the very best investment our government could make. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with more government programs which would have allowed someone like yourself who wanted a college degree to finish without stress and not have to worry about where your next meal was coming from.
There should be more access to a complete grant program with minimum hour requirements, grade requirements, and number of semesters allowed to finish without having to do anything other than focus on school. Either that or a loan program which could be partially or entirely "paid off" at graduation based on academic performance.
I don't think any of this makes me one iota better than the next person. But you laid down the gauntlet and asked what I've sacrificed to help reduce the deficit. This has been my own contribution to try to reduce it, though that's never really a conscious thought in my daily life. I've never really woken up and thought of my daily existence as: "What I'm doing will help reduce the deficit today."
Call me a blowhard, flame me, whatever, but you asked.