{"id":427,"date":"2022-05-08T01:56:35","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T08:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/?p=427"},"modified":"2022-05-08T23:01:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T06:01:21","slug":"opinion-save-our-truckers-not-affluent-students-seeking-a-free-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/05\/08\/opinion-save-our-truckers-not-affluent-students-seeking-a-free-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION – Save Our Truckers, Not Affluent Students Seeking a Free Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"
(BY DOUGLAS MACKINNON)<\/pre>\n
PLACERVILLE, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n
Take a look around you, whether you are at home, in the office, at a mall, or waiting for a sandwich at your local supermarket. Chances are, everything you see was delivered by truck. Every single thing.<\/p>\n
Just over two years ago, when the coronavirus pandemic struck, America\u2019s truck drivers were rightfully\u00a0hailed as \u201cheroes\u201d<\/a>\u00a0delivering essential supplies as we tried to cope with the escalating emergency. Today, however, not so much.<\/p>\n
Worse than being forgotten for the heroes they were \u2014 and are \u2014 is that many truckers now are struggling themselves simply to stay in business and pay their bills.<\/p>\n
Last Sunday, according to AAA, the average price for a gallon of diesel fuel in the United States\u00a0hit an all-time high<\/a>. It\u2019s a reality that is crushing the personal and corporate finances of independent truckers and trucking companies.<\/p>\n
Fuel prices are twice what they were a year ago and some long-distance truckers pay\u00a0more than $1,600<\/a>\u00a0to fill their tanks. Like the rest of us, they are getting battered by an inflation rate that recently hit a four-decade high. It has gotten so bad that a number of truckers are thinking of quitting the business before they are forced to file for personal bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
Back in the glory days of NASA, they had a favorite saying: \u201cNo bucks, no Buck Rogers.\u201d But even then, the space program had a personal or financial impact on only a few Americans.<\/p>\n
Truckers \u2014 and the essentials they deliver 24\/7\/365 \u2014 have a daily impact on every American.\u00a0 So, to expand on that NASA truism: \u201cNo truckers, no stuff, cascading problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether you support the\u00a0Biden<\/a><\/span>\u00a0administration or not, the fact is that rising fuel prices combined with\u00a0staggering inflation<\/a>\u00a0are morphing into personal emergencies for millions of Americans. At what point do these personal emergencies equal a national emergency?<\/p>\n
When national emergencies do strike, presidents must prioritize problems to be solved to benefit the majority of Americans. Maybe the Biden administration missed that memo.<\/p>\n
In the face of this ongoing ordeal that negatively impacts working-class America, we have the Biden administration trying to figure out how to orchestrate what some refer to as \u201cthe biggest giveaway in American history.\u201d President Biden wants\u00a0to cancel<\/a>\u00a0more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt.<\/p>\n
In more commonsense, pragmatic and honorable times, when you borrowed money, you were obligated by law \u2014 and your conscience \u2014 to pay it back. Like most American college and university students, I was not fortunate enough to have parents who paid for my education. What I could not pay for with money I saved while working as a busboy and waiter, I took out loans to cover the rest \u2014\u00a0loans that I dutifully and rightfully paid back.<\/p>\n
Now, would the Biden administration paint me and the tens of millions of other Americans who ethically paid off their loans as \u201csuckers\u201d?<\/p>\n
As cited by economist Stephen Moore and others, the most recent Federal Reserve\u00a0Survey of Consumer Finances<\/a>\u00a0reported that only 22 percent of families had student loan debt \u2014 and that \u201cstudent debt has consistently been disproportionately held by higher-income families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Higher-income families. I suspect that if we took a survey of America\u2019s truckers, few, if any, would come from higher-income families. Most probably come from working-class or poor backgrounds. Though it\u2019s possible to earn $80,000 or more as a truck driver, the\u00a0median salary<\/a>\u00a0in 2020 for America\u2019s truckers was $47,130.<\/p>\n
As our truckers \u2014 who bring us food, medicine, household goods and more \u2014 risk being financially pulverized by punishing fuel prices and inflation, an obvious question comes to mind:\u00a0 Where is the Biden administration\u2019s rescue plan for them? How in the world are\u00a0affluent students<\/a>, who are obligated to pay their debts, prioritized over America\u2019s truckers?<\/p>\n
Some speculate that Biden is trying to \u201cbuy the votes\u201d of those young debtors and potential freeloaders. We do live in cynical, polarized times but we must hope that this is not the case.<\/p>\n
That said, many perceive the Biden administration as floundering and, if past administrations are an indicator, when a president sees his approval rating below the water line, crass politics happen.<\/p>\n
CBS News\u00a0recently reported<\/a>\u00a0that Biden told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus regarding student debt: \u201cI\u2019m looking to do something on that, and I think you\u2019re going to like what I do.\u201d Was that a \u201cwink and a nod\u201d indicating an enticement policy?<\/p>\n
We will soon find out. But in the meantime, as the president contemplates the biggest giveaway in American history \u2014 which would be inflationary, would benefit a small number of mostly affluent students, would create a tax burden for everyone else, and would drive up the cost of college as administrators looked to cash in on the government payoff \u2014 he should take a minute to look around the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m guessing that every single thing there was delivered at some point by America\u2019s truckers,\u00a0 the forgotten heroes we lauded just two years ago.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\n
Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. His latest book is \u201c<\/em>The 56: Liberty Lessons From Those Who Risked All to Sign the Declaration of Independence<\/em><\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although gasoline prices have dropped recently, the price of diesel fuel is still high, as the sign at this Flying J Truck Stop advertises in Pearl, Miss., on April 20, 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inedc.com\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}