United States Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2022-09-21 at 00:16:04 )

United States Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

Listen to a reading of this article:

Nineteen members of the United States House of Representatives have written a letter [PDF] to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States.

The letter reads as follows:

Dear President Biden,

We write to you to share our concerns about the unintended consequences of your decision to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower. We are particularly concerned about the negative impact this will surely have on our nations military and their ability to recruit and retain top talent.

As you know, some of the most successful recruiting incentives for the military are the GI Bill and student loan forgiveness programs. The idea that the military will pay for schooling during or after completion of a service obligation is a driving factor in many individuals decision to join one of the services. A recent estimate showed that as many as 178,000 servicemembers were eligible for some type of forgiveness.

By forgiving such a wide swath of loans for borrowers, you are removing any leverage the Department of Defense maintained as one of the fastest and easiest ways to pay for higher education. We recognize the loan forgiveness programs have issues of their own, but this remains a top recruiting incentive.

Currently, a mere 23 percent of the population is eligible to serve in the military. Even fewer of those have a propensity to serve. At the end of last month, the Army had only reached 66 percent of its recruiting goal for the year. The Navy, only 89 percent. It is no secret that each of the services continues to battle hardships in recruiting and now these problems will be exacerbated by removing the uniqueness of this benefit.

As the services try to adopt unique approaches to tackle their recruiting challenges, including historic bonuses, it feels like their legs are being cut out from underneath them. With this in mind, we ask for you to provide us answers to the following questions:

1. Was the effect on military service considered in the development of the recent student loan forgiveness decision?

2. What is the administrations plan to develop incentives to augment the loss of those who might join the military to help pay off student loans?

3. What improvements are being made to ensure timely payments to those currently enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs for both active duty and reserve components?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

So they are just coming right out and admitting it. One of the reasons the United States government does not offer the same kinds of social support systems that people have in all other wealthy nations is because otherwise there would be no economic pressure on young Americans to sign up for service in the United States war machine.

This is no secret, but it is generally considered taboo for government officials to actually say so.

People have been talking about the poverty draft for many years - about the established fact that a majority of United States military recruits come from neighborhoods with below median income levels and that those neighborhoods are targeted for recruitment because impoverished communities often see military service as their only chance at upward mobility.

But the term "poverty draft" can create a bit of confusion, because when most Americans hear "poverty" they think homeless people and those who can barely afford to eat or keep a roof over their heads.

In reality the United States is a nation where a majority of the population would be unable to pay for a $1,000 emergency expense from their savings, and the level at which economic pressure is felt to join the military is much higher than the very poorest of the poor.

Those economic pressures are why United States Army officials have explicitly said that the student loan crisis is to thank for their success in meeting recruitment goals.

How did the Army exceed its recruiting goals this year? It was the student loan crisis, not the wars, service leaders say.-Military Times (MilitaryTimes) September 17, 2019

So the United States empire has a huge incentive to maintain a very large population of Americans who are economically uncomfortable, and this plays a significant role in the domestic policymaking decisions of that nations government.

The United States empire is held together by constant violence and the threat thereof, and its ability to apply that violence would be crippled without a steady supply of warm teenage bodies to feed into its war machine. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the United States empire would collapse without the economic pressures which coerce teens to sign up to kill and be killed over things like oil reserves and Raytheon profit margins.

It is one of those things that looks more ghoulish the more you think about it. In the wealthiest nation in the world, economic justice is actively suppressed in part to ensure that young United States Americans will feel financially squeezed into killing foreigners who are far more impoverished than they are. They are keeping people poor so that they will commit mass murder. It is actually hard to think of anything more depraved than that.

But such is the nature of the capitalist empire. You are either a useful gear-turner of the machine or you are liquidated and turned into fuel for its engine. If you are not a successful capitalist you can be used to defend the empire with pricey weaponry. If you are not helping the empire you can be used to drive up profits for the military-industrial complex as a target for war machinery whose costly munitions will need to be replaced. If you are not a good gear-turner you can be sent to become a prison slave or incarcerated in a private for-profit prison. There is a use for everyone in the empire.

The globe-spanning power structure that is centralized around the United States is the most evil, soulless and destructive force on this planet.

The young people who are duped, manipulated and financially coerced into joining its war machine come back horrifically traumatized by the experiences they have in the situations they are placed in. Something better is needed. This cannot continue.

"This Ms Caitlin Johnstone article, its pictures, and its links are here:"

Thanks for reading!!

Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".