THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
FOXX: I went through school, I worked my way through, it took me seven years, I never borrowed a dime of money. He borrowed a little bit because we both were totally on our own when we went to college, totally. […] I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” You don’t have it dumped in your lap.
I really, truly hesitate to use the word “evil” when referring to Republicans. Yet there are those on the Far Right who are so far removed from reality and human decency that “evil” seems almost inadequate. If they’re not waging war on women, they’re working overtime to marginalize the poor, deny health care to the sick, and cut or completely eliminate all manner of social programs. It’s as if the social contract has come to be seen as a sign of moral weakness, and that leaving people to their own devices is the only acceptable way to weed out the weak, the sick, and the indolent.
I thought I’d heard pretty much every example of Conservative insensitivity and intolerance…and then along comes Virginia Foxx, who proves me wrong by taking haughtiness and hateful intolerance to new depths.
Despite Foxx’s implication, these loans are not taken out frivolously. They are taken out because of the soaring cost of college. In other words, because the price of college is so high — and House Republicans are working overtime to cut Pell grants for one million low-income students — the amount of loans required to pay for it is also high. Indeed, student loan debt topped one trillion dollars last year, orders of magnitude larger than in the decades prior.
Still, Foxx’s distaste for large loans does not appear to extend to the mortgage sector. In Foxx’s 2010 financial disclosure statement, she owned two individual mortgage notes worth up to $250,000 each, from which she earned as much as $20,000 in payments.
What Foxx typifies (and magnifies) is an attitude common among those on the Far Right. Not only do they not understand the plight of those who don’t live, think, and/or believe as they do, they consider their own experience to be the standard by which most, if not all, Americans should be judged. After all, they made it, right? They’re successful. They’re in Congress. They make a six-figure salary. When they leave Congress, most can count on settling into a cushy job in a lobbying firm on K Street and making far more than their Congressional salary. Their lives, their stresses, and their concerns are so far removed from the average American that it’s no wonder they take positions so thoughtless and mean-spirited.
Virginia Foxx is one of the worst examples of the clueless, self-righteous, hyper-judgmental Republican caucus. They’ve become so out of touch with their constituents and so beholden to Big Oil and Wall Street that they honestly seem to believe that tax cuts for the 1% really ARE the best (and only) way to create jobs and restore our economy to health.
Foxx shouldn’t be allowed to serve as county dog catcher, much less a Congresscritter. Perhaps if she could remove her anterior from her posterior, she’d understand that college loans aren’t the frivolous exercises in financial irresponsibility she sees them as. College costs today far outstrip what they were during the Dark Ages when she put herself through school. For most students, doing what Foxx did simply isn’t an option; they can’t make enough money to keep up.
Education, despite what Foxx might think, is not “frivolous.” The only way America will be able to move ahead and compete in an increasingly globalized economy is through education and updated skills. If Virginia Foxx has her way, America’s ability to compete will inevitably degrade, to the point where we’ll eventually become a second-tier economy.
STILL glad you voted Republican??
