This morning President Obama signed this:
Another victory: Student loan reform
The reforms that President Obama signed into law include historic investments to make education more affordable, and deliver on another key campaign promise. The legislation:
•Ends subsidies to special-interest private lending companies
•Doubles funding for Pell Grants to help more students afford a college education
•Will cap a graduate’s annual student loan repayments at 10 percent of his or her income
•Helps an additional 5 million Americans earn degrees and certificates over the next decade, by revitalizing programming at our nation's community colleges
http://my.barackobama.com/...
I've got a son home with me this week. Spring break in today's economy means a visit home and some yard work cleaning up after this winter's storm so that mom can save the cash and pay your housing deposit. My son is a music major and is damned good at what he does, but he's changing his major because he doesn't want to be "homeless".
Fear is hanging over the decisions my 19 and 20 year old are making about their futures and as a parent I've long resented the years this generation has had to grow up in; 9/11 followed by an endless war, then the recession. My kids had their formative years in the age of the terror alert, in the dark years of America under George W. Bush. So now, when my uber-talented son, tells me he can't think of himself pursuing music, the love of his life, because he is afraid of the recession I have to adjust my perspective to his.
I looked at the years behind my children tried to understand. They don't have the starry-eyed America that I understood when I was a young adult. Even though I grew up at the end of the age of the Cold War I believed in America as the land of the free, the place where all dreams were possible. We were the "movers and the shakers" and we were changing the world. So much has occurred before the eyes of my children, and their perception of our country is dark and cynical.
For these reasons and so many more I held onto the idea of hope under Barack Obama. So many here seem to take every chance to knock around this administration for each and every perceived let-down. I am constantly astounded at the pervading inability to remember the horrible state this nation was in just a few short years ago. After the first three years of Bush I was ready to pack my children up and move. I was in the streets with them protesting and getting nothing but jeers. They were witnessing the absolute loss of minds of so many adults we respected around us, family members, neighbors, even teachers who argued and harangued them for speaking the truth. I was explaining the lies the best way that a rational adult can to teenagers as they were occuring and hoping beyond hope that my children would believe me and not the ignorant sector of our society.
Barack Obama is doing something for my children, something for these "age of terror" kids, and I think our government and his administration deserves credit for it. In a time where these kids have to wonder where their jobs are coming from after they finally get through their wildly expensive college educations, he has signed into law both healthcare reform and student loan reform, within the same two weeks. When I hear people saying "What is he doing to our children?" I say, "Trying to save them."
It's not all that popular to voice responsibility for future generations these days. People complain about nanny-states and P.C. cliches. I've always been inclined based upon my professions (mother and teacher) to look at the world through the eyes of the kids I am accompanying in this life. We owe them hope after subjecting them to years of stoked hatred and fear mongering, we owe them vision after years of looking to so many of them to fight in wars of no reason.
In the midst of all of this complaining and bickering about how awful our President is because he didn't come through on this pony or that I find myself more often than not in complete agreement with his actions. I see him looking toward the real wealth of this nation, its youngest members, and extending a hand to help them reach for some kind of a vision other than signing up for endless war. How can we be ignoring that comparison? I see him trying to lift up the most vulnerable, impoverished, ill and ignored amongst us where George W. Bush turned his back, and yet there are accusations that he is not "progressive" enough? The injustice of blaming Barack Obama for the economy we have even as Bush's supporters ignored literally plane-loads of stolen money from our treasury, ignored his lies and the obvious deception...the injustice is soul-harrowing. These are some of the comparisons people have forgotten about, and I don't know how that is possible...some kind of weird PTSD on a national level I suppose. I try to quiet myself when I think about it and understand that eventually all truth finds its way to the surface.
For today I'm writing another diary to balance perspective around here a bit. Today he signed a law that will give my children back a little more of the future George Bush stole from them, and for that, I am grateful to this good man that is our President.