help me sway my sister to vote for ron paul (dept of edu. -related)

Ron Paul does want to give tax credits to college students so they don't have to pay taxes, etc. Federal government aid is mostly to people who quality because they are too poor to pay for college. I don't know if this is included in the Dept. of education's funds, but most of it goes to pay for no child left behind and other failed programs.

I thought he introduced a bill to give a credit or deduction on educational expenses.

IMissLiberty

The prospect of voting for someone other than Ron Paul worries me, so I've decided to answer this in detail. What she wants to hear is probably right at the end, but what comes in the middle is by far the most important part.

The way the US economy is headed, soon enough the money she receives (through student loans or otherwise) will be worthless, so she'll have much bigger problems if Ron Paul isn't elected.

I'm a Brazilian engineering grad student, and I put my savings in the local (Brazilian) stock market. The stock market's behavior gives a very precise measurement of the economy's health, so it's worth understanding.

Due to the subprime mortgage crisis and global lack of confidence in the US dollar, the global markets are now extremely unstable. They have been since July, and there's no solution in sight. The Federal Reserve essentially bluffed twice over the last six months and gave very short-term, unconvincing solutions.

What Americans perceive as a rise in oil prices has little to do with oil becoming more expensive to produce. The problem is that the US dollar is losing value, so to Americans it becomes more expensive. This rise in prices is true in the general sense, and doesn't only affect oil, and this is becoming obvious to Americans at this moment.

This devaluation still doesn't show directly in the stock market. The mess that we're seeing is the collateral effect of a weak dollar as presented in a credit crisis, but not the direct effect. Let me elaborate. Since the US dollar is falling in relation to the Euro, American stocks are worth less than they should. For example, a 1% rise in Microsoft's stock is essentially cancelled if the US dollar falls 1%, because every American stock is priced in dollars. Nowaways investors act as if this effect didn't matter, but it can't and won't be ignored forever.

Then there's the issue of who owns your companies. About a month ago, an investment bank in Dubai became the largest shareholder in Citicorp/Citibank. Today, an investment bank from China bought a 5 billion dollar stake in Morgan Stanley, which is the US' second largest investment bank. Today, the Chinese became their second largest shareholder. This should've never happened under a good financial regime, and is the result of runaway government spending.

Your sister needs to look at the big picture. As the economy goes south, her loans will be worth less and will become progressively more difficult to pay back. If Ron Paul is elected, he won't make changes overnight. He won't eliminate the Fed, halt Medicare and stop student loans because these are integral parts of the economy and killing these programs right away would be absurd.

The idea is to stabilize the economy by limiting spending in the obvious ways -- for starters, by fixing the foreign policy. Iraq alone is responsible for 2 billion dollars a week! Once government spending is under control, taxes can be reduced, and the need for loans is also diminished. The concept of a loan (directed at a student or not) won't disappear under any sort of capitalist government. It simply won't be the role of the federal government to subsidize private activities. Like Dr. Paul said, it's not up to the federal government to take money from one group of people and give to another. This doesn't mean student loans cease to exist -- they're just delegated to other institutions -- for example, to state agencies.

And frankly, it's not like federal loans come from exclusively government funds, because there's no such thing. The Federal Reserve is part government owned, part private (check Wikipedia for this shocking fact). Ron Paul's reorganization would clean up this mess, and upset a LOT of bankers.

need i say more?....i will anyway...

Education cannot be handled at the federal level. There are so many different local situations that need to be considered on their own merits, and as such there is no federal law that could be passed which would effectively improve education because it must, by definition, be a blanket law that applies to all of the unique situations. Any blanket law applied will have potentially positive effects in one area while having negative effects in another. Thus, why subjugate education to the federal level when it can obviously be handled more effectively at the local level?

Secondly, if school A implements a certain policy, and it is shown to have a bad effect on the education, then the parents will remove their children from the school and put them into school B. Over time, school A loses money and goes away along with all of its bad implementations and policies. Without competition between policies and ideas the education system cannot evolve. With federal blanket laws there is no competition, and thus we are stuck with bad policies no matter what.

Thirdly, what the hell does any president know about education? Bush is a busy man, he can't spend hours on end trying to analyze all of the different schools and what policies they need depending on their unique situations. Even IF blanket laws could potenitally be effective it is highly unlikely that the president will be able to choose the correct law, given the fact that he probably is not an education expert.

Fourthly, when you allow for federal control of education you inevitably will have politics affecting education. Having politics affect education necessarily results in incorrect policies, both because blanket education laws are inherently inneffective and because politics certainly cannot influence the choice of policies in a positive manner. The latter is due to the fact that the policies chosen must be done so taking into account all the available knowledge on education, and only then can you even hope to create an effective policy. If politics are involved in this process it means that you are not using knowledge about education, but rather arbitrary ideas implemented by whatever political ideology is predominant in the mind of the president.

If the Dept. of Education is inherently ineffective and is guarenteed to make education worse, why should we spend so many tax dollars to continue it? It exists solely to give unnecessary power to those who seek to control us, and how we think. It is DANGEROUS, and should certainly be eliminated. In fact, if public education was effective I wouldn't have to explain all of this.

50 states(state ran education)
40-states have a good education system
10-states have bad systems
we have a chance with this setup

Federal government ran education(cookie cutter)
50-states have a good education system(almost impossible)
or
50-states have a bad education system(we're all screwed)

Just because the government is not providing loans it doesn't mean no one else will. The government crowds out private loans. The market will fill in the demand if the government stops. There are private loans now. There would just be a lot more available and the competition among them would keep the rates low and terms good.

Another thing that would happen, which just crossed my mind, is loans would be more available for the most promising career choices and less available for the bad choices. Students would be guided to majors more likely to result in landing a job. That's a good thing. It would make the economy more efficient and profitable.

There are myriad unsubsidized educational loans out there nowadays. The Department of Education is not a necessary existence for such things to exist. She's in college, she should know this....

Something cool I found, the Ron Paul Repository:
http://egocentral.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=15324

Go to youtube and show her the videos of Iraq. Show her the shots of the deformed babies in the maternity wards from the DU bombs we were using over there.

I'm not done yet.

Explain to her that heroin production in Afghanistan increased by 300% after we took over.

Show her some nice pictures of regular Iranian people going to work in the morning and dropping their kids off at school and let her know that these people have a good a chance as any of being vaporized by the US military.

Tell her 10,000 American men and women war vets, who are her age, have killed themselves since returning home.

Tell her that president Bush can legally take control of the New Hampshire national guard units and fire on residents of New Hampshire now.

Just let her know that president Bush can identify her as a terrorist based on fabricated proof, arrest her, hold her indefinitely without trial and torture her.

Tell her that all of those young men and women serving her country in Iraq would like to be home with their families this Christmas just like your sister...but they won't be.

I have friends with children in both wars. Tell your sister that she will never know the pain of never knowing whether your child is alive or dead.

If that isn't enough I'm sure the free market system will have a host of loan options for your sister....and her GD student loan.

There's a year until inauguration and then at least another before any big changes could take place, since Dr. Paul plans to work with Congress. How many years does she have left? Even if she had to take a little higher interest loan (like those who don't qualify for gov. loans), avoiding all the inflation, income tax, and social security tax would make her WAY richer than in the end. If the dollar loses all value, she'll regret that much more than losing a loan!
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Lymeade Lady
lymeadehealth.blogspot.com

"The federal government does not own our children. Yet we act as if it does by letting it decide when, how, and what our children will learn. We have turned their futures over to lobbyists and bureaucrats.

I support giving educational control back to parents, who know their children better than any politician in D.C. ever will.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools. I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states. By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes,(which they are now, by property taxes - notation added) and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources.

To help parents with the costs of schooling, I have introduced H.R. 1056, the Family Education Freedom Act, in Congress. This bill would allow parents a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjustable after 2007 for inflation) per student per year for the cost of attendance at an elementary and/or secondary school. This includes private, parochial, religious, and home schools.

Another bill I have sponsored, H.R. 1059, allows full-time elementary and secondary teachers a $3,000 yearly tax credit, thus easing their financial burden and encouraging good teachers to stay in an underpaid profession.

Many parents have already shown their desire to be free of federal control by either enrolling their children in private schools or homeschooling them. And students enrolled in these alternatives have consistently performed better and tested higher than those in state-run schools.

Years of centralized education have produced nothing but failure and frustrated parents. We can resurrect our public school system if we follow the Constitution and end the federal education monopoly. "
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And you can remind her that any money she gets as grants, came from someone else's pocket. and that the amount she will pay for others education during her lifetime will dwarf any grant she might get while attending school.

A lot of people flip out when you tell them he hates the IRS and the Dept of Education, Energy, Homeland Security... etc etc (A lot of the folks I know are Dems.) Basically just tell her that what Paul WANTS to do is very different from what he CAN do. People to often confuse being president with being king. Paul cannot simply decree that the Dept of Education is dead nor can he descend from on high and revoke her loans. Really the only things he can do on his own are:
A. End the war in Iraq,
B. Bring all of our troops home, and
C. Stop badgering other countries.

All of the other sweet stuff that scares her will require congress, and as long as she votes in a blood sucking Dem as her rep then she can have her precious Dept of Education. Even if we manage to get everything Paul wants done in his 1st term, Paul is not stupid and he is not heartless. He is for gradually getting people off things not yanking the carpet out from under the elderly and poor. So tell her that such fears are unfounded.

PS. Here is a good example to use: Cheney and Bush didn't want the Dept of Homeland Security. The Congress FORCED it on them. So conversely Paul might loathe 99% of our Government, but he can't really kill it off if the Congress fights him (and believe me they will... that is until we get them replaced)

Sure the federal government started out student loans, but I see no reason to think student loans wouldn't continue to exist. Many states help subsidize student loans now, even without the states you would still see unsubsidized loans which wouldn't be the end of the world.

As to the federal government enforcing forced payback of these loans thereby having lower interest rate. That is hard to compete, I wonder what the market would come up with.. who knows really.. Maybe you could legally sign away rights to your retirement funds?? :)

Tell your sister not to worry. RP has said over and over again that there are priorities and ceasing student loans is not one of them. Your sister will be long gone out of school by the time anything is adjusted. RP is not stupid and certainly has given every indication he doesn't want to "kick people out on the street."

Remember, things take time. He has stated that the 1st priority is the Iraq war and second would be the IRS. Washington works SLOW.

Your sister is very safe. Besides, if Ron Paul gets elected it will be easier for your sis to pay back those loans....

Tuition keeps going up, because our country is in a never-ending borrowing cycle. The banks know this, the business' know this.

So what's the best way for the schools/business to make money? Raise the cost of tuition, because the banks have assured them that they will give the loans.

And remember, just because Ron Paul says he wants to do this, wants to do that.. doesn't mean every single thing will get accomplished. He's not a dictator... unlike others..... What he says, does not turn into law. He has to work through Congress to get things done. So if people really want to continue to get help to go to school, I'm sure people will speak up and things won't change much.

I think removing federal loans on schooling is probably the least of Ron Paul's concerns. If we quit spending our money on maintaining an empire, I bet Ron Paul would be more willing to allow that money to be spent on people trying to better themselves through school.

But in the end, your sister just has to remember that Ron Paul cannot do everything by himself... he has to go through Congress. And most importantly, he has to answer to the will of the people. I believe he would be the one president who would actually do that.

Banks + Schools = higher tuition. Break the bad credit cycle this country is in, and I bet you anything the cost of school would come down greatly. And once your dollars value is restored, and you actually get to keep more of your money.. you can once again start saving money for school. Remember the days when someone could save up a little bit of money, buy a piece of land and put a house on it? We can have those days back once again... if we just restore the dollar and end the cycle of abusive lending by banks.

There are several writings by Dr. Paul on the subject.

http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/search/search.php?q=college+tu...

"I am also cosponsoring the Make College Affordable Act (H.R. 2750), which makes college tuition tax deductible for middle-and-working class Americans, as well as several pieces of legislation to provide increased tax deductions and credits for education savings accounts for both higher education and K-12."

To do changes like this takes time and transition as paul has stated and to build support with congress.

I really doubt congress that will most likely be almost all democrat with give into this.

What they will give into is reducing our "cold war" base models that surround russia, china.

Also backing part of our economy, i say social security, with hard assets, to protect the baby boomer from destruction.

..anyway no fears the best stuff will come forward and the stuff that effects her will take a very long debate to happen. long after she is out of school

tell her she's being a selfish prig by putting her short term needs over the good of the country...

(j/k, I'm in a pissy mood atm... watch the video where Ron's talking at Google, he addresses this.)
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Son_Of_Liberty (formerly known as hippychimp...)

carpe libertatem

the fact that a Ron Paul presidency would be the best thing that could ever happen to her pocketbook, dwarfing any potential student loan loss that might occur. By 2030, she will be paying either 70% more in income taxes or double the payroll taxes, while America sinks to the level of a second rate economic power. This is because of the huge increases in entitlement spending that are coming. Google Kotlikoff and the coming generational storm, a quick snapshot is given in his interview with the non-partisan Tax Foundation. Tell your sister that a vote for Ron Paul, even if he ultimately falls short of the oval office, strengthens the message that young people know they're getting screwed on entitlements and that it must be attended to now while there's still time. Not voting for Ron gives her (and us) little chance for long term prosperity, truly.
-JP