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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Democrats won’t let the dream die

Posted 10/31/14

For the first time in American history, we have a generation predicted to fare worse than its predecessor. College tuition is the highest it’s ever been. In era of stagnant wages and one where a …

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Democrats won’t let the dream die

Posted

For the first time in American history, we have a generation predicted to fare worse than its predecessor. College tuition is the highest it’s ever been. In era of stagnant wages and one where a college degree is more necessary than ever for obtaining gainful employment, this is one of the fiercest foes young adults in America face. Thousands of our nation’s youth have or will be graduating with five or even six figures of student loan debt, to the detriment of everyone. How can the economy do anything but suffer when the debt burdens of young Americans force them to forestall the investments of marriage, children, and home ownership, when budding entrepreneurs and innovators cannot take the risk of starting a new venture, and when others simply dismiss a college education as an expense they can’t afford? The American dream: the family of four, two cars in the garage, and the yearly vacation, has been wrenched away and cast into the night to die. It now seems just a relic of a bygone age, an age where a summer’s worth of minimum wage work could pay for a year of college tuition and where the minimum wage kept pace with inflation. These injustices harm us all, yet it seems only half of those on this year’s ballot recognize that and are willing to do something about it.

Congressman Rick Nolan has made his stance clear; he would reduce the price of college and keep student loan interest rates low, along with increasing the federal minimum wage, the wage that many college students earn before and during college, to $10.10 per hour. Governor Mark Dayton froze tuition rates for Minnesota undergraduates and increased state funding to colleges. Senator Al Franken helped pass a 2010 law that increased funding for Pell Grants, and is working hard to push through legislation that would allow students to renegotiate their student loans at a lower interest rate, in addition to his efforts alongside Nolan to raise the minimum wage. This is in stark contrast to the Republican Party, the party whose outdated values suggest they should change their logo to a mastodon. Stewart Mills would cut funding for Pell Grants, and opposes raising the minimum wage, even as inflation renders its value less and less with every passing year. As a state representative, prospective governor Jeff Johnson voted twice to cut funding for higher education, all the while favoring tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, the two groups that absolutely, positively, do not need tax cuts. This suggests to me that they are either utterly out of touch with the issues affecting other Americans, or that they simply don’t care. I don’t know which is worse, but I know I don’t want either attitude representing me anywhere.

And now a message direct to my fellow millennials: make sure you vote, because the more we vote, the more politicians will take notice and start to bring our interests to the table in St. Paul and Washington. And many of our interests, many issues that affect the youth of America, are already represented in the world of politics, in Nolan, Franken, and Dayton. So let’s make sure they’re the ones at the table.

To anyone concerned about this country’s future, or anyone who will live that future, take note. The American dream may be dying, but its fate is not yet sealed. Its fate is in your hands.

Maxwell Helmberger

Duluth, Minn.