Stealing from Ourselves

In the 2005 movie, Cinderella Man, Russell Crow plays Jim Braddock, a struggling Depression-era boxer whose family is thrown into poverty by the hard economic times of the 1930’s. When his eldest son, Jay steals a salami to help feed his starving family, Jim forces him to return the salami and apologize to the butcher. He tells Jay, “Just because things ain’t easy, doesn’t give you an excuse to take what isn’t yours. That’s stealing, right. And we don’t steal. No matter what happens, we don’t steal. Not ever. You got me.” Jim could have easily turned a blind eye to his son’s theft, rationalizing keeping the salami was best for his starving family. But by returning it, Jim gained more than what he gave back. He earned back his character and his integrity which makes the lives he is trying to save worth living.

Eventually, Jim reluctantly decides to take some government relief money to help his family survive the Depression, but then after his boxing career has been resurrected, there is a classic scene where Jim goes back to the relief office and returns the $323.60 of relief money, he had received to feed his family. Even though, he took government relief during his family’s financial hardship, he never forgot what he owed, and paid it back as soon as he could. Once again, by giving back material things, he gained something of more importance, his integrity, his self-respect. That used to be the character of our nation. We used to be a country that valued self-sufficiency, that saw taking charity and government hand-outs as an insult, that paid back their debts. But not anymore.

Last week, Joe Biden signed an executive order forgiving $10,000 of student loan debt to millions of people. But the $300 billion needed to pay for this scheme is not free. Someone pays, someone always pays. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Biden did not cancel $300 billion of student loan debt, he simply transferred $300 billion of debt from private college educated people to every taxpayer. Even if taxes are not raised to pay for this giveaway, everyone else will still pay. If the government merely allows the national debt to grow to pay for it, the taxpayer will have to pay for our obligation on that increased debt. If the government prints more money to pay for this student loan debt, everyone will pay through the increased inflation. Allowing other people pay back your debts is essentially stealing, and stealing is wrong which was the lesson that Jim Braddock taught his young son at the butcher shop, but elite Universities have failed to teach college educated adults in their woke classrooms.