by Geramee Hensley
The State of the Union (SOTU) address is a lovely night when career politicians can put their bipartisanship aside and come together to pat each other on the backs for what a swell job the government is doing. Isn’t humanity neat?
Obama thinks so. I do, too, usually. Maybe. But good things have happened this year, to name a few: our graduation rates are at the highest they have been in thirty years (applause from the crowd), eight million new jobs in business surfaced (applause from the crowd), and autoworkers brought dependency on foreign oil to record lows (no applause).
Tough crowd—apparently, the rise of domestic oil production in a country experiencing recession for nearly six years is not applause-worthy news to a room full of bitter legislators, but Obama powered through, stalwart and handsome—the hero America deserves.
With his speech, Obama focused on America still existing as that wonderful haven of grand opportunity for the lesser fortuned individual.
“Too many are working too much to just get by, let alone get ahead,” Obama said. “Too many aren’t working at all.”
The comment was met with the distant and disembodied applause from one or a few, probably drunk, attendees in the back. Despite our nation’s unemployment being the “lowest in five years,” Obama wants to take further executive action to help the middle class. He endorses corporations following suit of Costco and paying above minimum wage to improve worker morale. He wants to enact a federal minimum wage of $10.10, because “minimum wage is worth 20% less since Reagan has been in office,” Obama said.
Here’s some news relevant to us college kids in regards to our meaty loan payments: we can cap that payment to 10% of our salary. Too bad nobody was wise enough to make the joke that 10% of zero is still zero. When we do catch that mystical unicorn called a “job,” 10% of its salary will cover our interest accruing debt by the time we have grandkids. Or the less fortunate will perish, and let their children inherit it.
A very high minimum wage and enormous student debts with salary-based loan payments raise questions that we’re not brave to ask in a large public forum such as the SOTU. For example, how are we to remedy this ridiculous inflation issue? At what point will the minimum wage burst? Doesn’t the student debt crisis look an awful lot like the 2008 housing crisis—loaning money to those who won’t be able to really pay it back?
Maybe there is a foundational problem here—perhaps there is something wrong with the current fractional reserve banking model and our fiat currency system. Are we not literally just building another damn recession right under our feet? Am I going crazy here? I feel like Bugs Bunny. Somebody hug me. Not you, POTUS.
After almost rage-quitting this whole SOTU ordeal, I decided to power through. By the end of it, I inferred not only the success of America from Obama’s speech, but also the failure of other countries.
We must invest to get ahead in growing technology sectors and “beat other countries,” said Obama. Bad images of our many battles with other countries flood my brain, but 2014 is not the year for militarizing in other countries. 2014 is the year of action, when America gets its economic edge back, and we beat things with that edge. Look out China; we’re bringing sexy back.
ghensley@capital.edu
