Debt ceiling crisis masks real issues of unemployment
A week before my last year of undergraduate studies was set to begin, I was enjoying the company of two dear friends. The three of us often find ourselves prisoners in the conversational cage of rushes orbiting the vast ineptitude of national and world policy, and this night was no different. Of course, there was something else on our minds as well — the inevitability of postgraduate life, and with heavy hearts and disgruntled minds, we could not pretend the two were not intimately connected.
We could not pretend, but many students do.
More often than not, when I ask a fellow peer what he or she plans to do after college, if the answer is not, “Keep going to school,” it is, “Yeah, good question.” The problem with the former is clear, as the return on investment for many graduate and even doctoral programs is becoming dismal, and the truth in the latter is that unemployment rates are not dropping. In fact, at a staggering 9.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is no wonder, though most of us are disgusted to admit it, that this undergraduate experience is, for many, nothing more than a 4-, 5- or even 6-year escape from the unsympathetic certainty of growing joblessness.
When the “crisis” of the debt ceiling deal to avoid a “catastrophic” default was ravishing the headlines, I would madly skim through news, wondering where the real issues of unemployment were hidden. Why was this event cloaking the real problem, and why was no one, especially the president, addressing it? It was deathly embarrassing that the topic of raising the debt ceiling was so massive, because, let’s be real, how else to eradicate this liquidity trap besides raising the ceiling, borrowing money to stimulate invaluable human capital and birthing a serious jobs plan? It is shameful that various media outlets have managed to associate the phrase “borrowing money” with calamitous outcomes — I’m aware that I sound like a minority when I utter the words with positivity, but let’s look at the big picture: The problem is nothing more than sickening national nearsightedness. Americans cannot seem to grasp that more spending now can absolutely synch with deficit reduction in the long term. How? By investing in the future prosperity of Americans. But, rather than establish a plan for future employment and national progress, the White House was quick to mask the real unemployment problem with arguments over the deficit so the public could, and can, be convinced the deficit actually correlates with our economic anguish. President Barack Obama is cowering, tucking his tail between his legs in fear of the Republican Party singing, “Hey, Big Spender,” when in actuality, that is exactly what we need to stimulate this slump.
Will my generation, our generation, be lost? Students are leaving college and working part-time jobs for years after, losing their skill sets and becoming weaker applicants as the years pass. The government needs to fight for a plan for our future, or else we students of today will not see an escape from the hopelessness of tomorrow.
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