Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit writes:
"The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them."
(MP: For example, the political obsession with homeownership turned thousands, if not millions, of good middle-class renters into really bad homeowners and undermined the "American Dream.")
Megan McArdle responds and asks a great question: "Who but a lunatic would loan money to an eighteen year old with no job and no credit record, in the hopes that they will graduate college and begin speedy repayment?"
The Political Obsession with Middle-Class Markers You On Here » The Political Obsession with Middle-Class Markers
