Speak Out is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you there’s something you’d like to comment on in Elgin or beyond, send an email to [email protected]. Please include “speak out” in the subject line.
Compromise needed: Should student loans be forgiven? That is the $1.7 trillion question. The answer is yes and no. Students have been charged usurious interest rates for government loans. Student loan interest rates are double the interest rates for homes or cars and the default rate is excessive. So yes, a restructuring of student loans and a deduction in balances is in order. However, students do need to pay back some of what they borrowed. Compromise is the key here. Lower interest rates on these loans and refund the students who have been bled dry by our government. Also, lowering college tuition would help.
Guessing game: Your child goes to school and you get an email that someone in their class has had COVID-19. Now, because of HIPAA, you have to guess who it might have been. HIPAA should be suspended until the pandemic is over. People should know exactly which person had COVID-19 in the class so people know how close the contact was.
Defending freedom: Recently on the opinion page, Paul Krugman of the New York Times stated President Biden has done more to defend freedom than any president since Harry Truman. Apparently he forgot about the actions of President Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis and President Reagan in the later years of the Cold War with Russia.
Shame on them: Who can we trust anymore? First, Bill Clinton tells us he never had sex with “that woman,” then George W. Bush invades Iraq because of a nuclear threat he knows doesn’t exist, and Mr. Trump is, well, Mr. Trump. But perhaps worst of all, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all said they would honor Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. All I can say is shame … shame … shame … and shame again!
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This is real money: Biden has to stop giving away our tax dollars like it is Monopoly money. I understand we had to help Ukraine but now we have done what we can do. Let the other countries help them. Another thing is, this is not the time to forgive student debt. There are other top priorities that are more important than letting young people pay their debt back so they can sit around. What about saving Social Security? What are you going to do for all these seniors?