You can’t make this stuff up …

Sometimes I feel like the chronicler of the insane.  Or maybe I’m the one who is crazy …

I read things that are so obviously counter to what many of us believe in, and the values we expect this country to have, and yet this stuff just blows by the vast majority who either don’t see the idiocy or have decided that it’s perfectly okay.  It’s downright scary.   

The other day, NBC’s Lester Holt interviewed some guy – “single working dad” – who was up for a raise, but instead asked for a pay cut so he could keep his childcare benefits. 

Here’s a link to the story on NBCnews.com: http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/23/15998838-working-single-dad-takes-pay-cut-to-keep-childcare-benefits?lite

Now the point they were apparently trying to make was how unfair the system is that to preserve benefits some people have to keep their earnings below a “cliff” level.  Earn too much and you no longer qualify for food stamps, housing assistance, or in this guy’s case $1700 a month to subsidize child care for his three kids.  Worse yet, because of budget cuts, the income qualification cutoff was lowered in his state from $50000 HHI to $41000 HHI.  Hence his request for a pay cut, so he’d keep his benefits. 

There are so many things wrong with this story.  First, it’s another variation on what I like to call “children as hostages” stories.  Next, where’s mom?  Why is this guy taking care of three kids on his own?  If you can’t afford to support three kids, why in God’s name did you have them? 

And since when – and in what perverted universe – does it make more sense to praise this guy as a hero/victim when he’s clearly gaming the system rather than someone who tries to increase their earnings to be more self-sufficient?

Hell of a life lesson to be teaching his kids. 

But I’m sure there are many who read this stupid story and thought “how sad for him.”  Others probably thought “hey, maybe I could do that, too.” 

Instead of a hero, this guy’s the poster child for a lot of what’s wrong today. 

When government makes it much more financially attractive to underachieve and avoid success, then something is way, way off kilter in our collective value system. 

Yet you know it’s not unusual anymore.  It’s becoming the norm.  This chiseling, gaming, and rampant abuse of originally well-intended programs is epidemic.  Hell, it’s actually encouraged. 

The government clearly is trying to make more and more of the public dependent on its programs. From food stamps, to free meals at public schools, to subsidized child care, housing, mortgages, student loans, and even cellphones, it’s fostering a nation of junkies who crave that next hit of government largesse to get through the day.   

And will vote however necessary to keep the fixes coming.  That’s the key. 

Every “fix” creates more problems as people and institutions learn how to twist them to their advantage.  The consequences may be unintended, but certainly not unpredictable.  

One reason daycare has become so expensive is because providers know their customers are often getting some kind of tax credit or subsidy to offset the cost. 

Colleges and universities know students can borrow more through subsidized loans so they‘ve been able to raise their prices far faster than inflation. 

Students know they can borrow for practically anything remotely considered “education,” regardless of whether it has any probability of leading to a decent paying job.  Then, because they know they can defer payments until they graduate, and college is a lot more entertaining than work, they stay in school adding even more debt. 

So now student loan debt is approaching a staggering 1.1-trillion dollars; larger than credit card debt and only surpassed by mortgage debt.  

But I’m pretty sure many of those students aren’t terribly concerned about paying that back.  They expect something will happen so they won’t have to pay the full tab.  And why shouldn’t they?   

Consider this:  The Huffington Post ran a story on May 17 about how outraged many Democrat legislators were that the Department of Education was slated to make a profit – that’s right a profit – of about $51 billion on student borrowers this year. 

Now the only reason this program is showing a profit at present is that the spread between student loan interest rates and the interest rate at which the government borrows is temporarily large.  The CBO expects the interest rate the government pays on the money it borrows to double over the next decade. 

But that doesn’t matter, of course.  Those enraged legislators called for an immediate and significant restructuring of the program to provide “substantially lower interest rates and debt forgiveness for struggling borrowers. “  In essence, they want to make sure that the program doesn’t turn a profit; at best, in their view, it will lose money down the road.

Let’s see … we’re drowning in debt as a nation.  A branch of the government is actually making money and there’s a movement in Congress among Democrats to make sure that ends ASAP. 

You couldn’t make this up. 

Logically, when you lower the cost of something, people consume more of it and use it more wastefully.  So what we want to do is encourage more students to borrow even more money, get further in debt, and then let those who have no intention of paying back loans they wasted on getting a degree in something that has no market value off the hook entirely? 

Have I got this right?  

Hell of a concept.