Of Course We Love the Troops. Didn't You Get the Card?

In the midst of the worst surge in mortgage defaults in seven decades, foreclosures in U.S. towns where soldiers live are increasing at a pace almost four times the national average, according to data compiled by research firm RealtyTrac Inc. in Irvine, California. As military families like the VerSteeghs signed up for the initial lower rates and easier terms of subprime mortgages, the number of people taking out Veterans Administration loans fell to the lowest in at least 12 years.
— "Foreclosures in Military Towns Surge at Four Times U.S. Rate," Bloomberg

That's right. Military families forsake a "government program" for the private market and get shown how well that works. They enlist to get help for college, end up spending a couple tours in Iraq and, if they are lucky, come back to find college tuition costs even more because states reluctant to raise taxes are underfunding their colleges and universities.

Republicans are going to start losing the military, and no amount of flag lapel pins and "strong defense" talk can conceal the gap between mouth and money.

 

Comments

[Hal Davis]

More of the same, TK, I'm sure.

Today I picked up a book I'd heard about, but had not seen, till I came across it, at 20 percent off, at Garruison Keillor's bookstore: _The Great Risk Shift_, by Jacob S. Hacker, pub'd in 2006. Subtitle is a doozy: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement, And How You Can Fight Back.

He details many examples of right-wing attempts to eliminate government safety nets for "personal responsibility" like Health Savings Accounts.

So more than just "Military families forsake a 'government program' for the private market and get shown how well that works." It's rampant.

"The straightforward prescription of all these attacks was that government should dramatically cut back its role in insuring Americans against economoic losses."

The right-wingers did overreach, some of them even predicting the demise of the Democratic Party once these privatizing programs took effect.

Not hardly. but as with socialist New Democratic Party victories in Canada, when the Dems win, they have to pick up the pieces with drastically diminished resources.

[Rod Loper]

I don't think any of this will register with the military. Rush is broadcast into all military channels. It is amazing to me that
a culture that depends on teamwork and sacrifice buys this crap that "You're on your own" is the ultimate good.