Stephanie C. Warriner

Business, credit card, mortgage and even gambling debt can all be discharged. So why not forgive student loans?

My name is Stephanie C. Warriner and I am writing to urge everyone to support H.R. 4170 and to call or write to your respective representatives (Pearce, Heinrich, or Luján) to co-sponsor The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.

I am a life-long resident of New Mexico. I am a product of New Mexico’s public education system, a graduate of New Mexico State University, and am currently enrolled in the EMBA program at the University of New Mexico.

H.R. 4170 was introduced last month in the House by Rep. Hansen Clarke, D-Mich, and co- sponsored by Reps. Karen Bass, D-Calif., John Conyers, D-Mich., Bob Filner, D-Calif, Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill. Student loan debt in our country has reached exorbitant levels, and it’s having a devastatingly effect on economic growth. As a voter in New Mexico I respectfully ask you to support this bill.

An education is not a luxury. It’s not a BMW, a heated pool, or a 15-room mansion. To seek an education does not make one a snob. Seeking an education is about opportunity. Education is the great equalizer. Investing in education is an investment into our future. It’s an assurance that everybody has a fair shot.

Student loans are the only type of debt that has been stripped away of any sort of consumer protection. Business, credit card, mortgage and even gambling debt can all be discharged. So why not forgive student loans? How can we ever expect the housing market to recover when those who are most likely to purchase homes (educated professionals) are burdened with thousands and thousands of dollars in student loan debt?

Money doesn’t trickle down, but an education lifts all boats. Everyone benefits from a more educated population. To positively stimulate economic growth, we need to start from the bottom and “trickle-up.” The Federal Reserve has given $16 trillion in loans with virtually zero interest to Wall Street. Meanwhile, I am left to beg and plead for a couple thousand bucks to pay tuition, and I still get strapped with an 8 percent interest rate. How is that fair?

We bailed out Wall Street

For those who may claim that because I support this act I don’t want to take responsibility for my actions, I ask that you consider the following: When the top earners in this country were paying 90 percent of the marginal tax, the economy boomed and they still got rich. Now they pay less, still get rich, and our economy is in the tank. But I’m not the responsible one because I want my student loans forgiven.

We bailed out Wall Street for their recklessness. It’s time to for America and Wall Street to do right by us.

In a time in which the high school dropout rate is skyrocketing, it is rare to even see people with a desire for baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate education. The thought of having years and years of student loan debt makes it much more difficult to encourage people to seek higher education.

This bill helps people. This bill encourages people to seek an education, and an education encourages people to be successful. This bill is an investment.

I am a student with student loan debt and I am a voter. I urge you support this bill. I urge you to contact your representative and ask him to please co-sponsor H.B. 4170. Please support The Student Loan Forgiveness ACT of 2012.

Warriner is a Democrat and life-long resident of New Mexico, and presently resides in Albuquerque with her fiancé. She is a 2008 graduate of New Mexico State University with a bachelor’s in government and philosophy. Currently, she is an EMBA student in the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico. In a nutshell, she is an Irish-Mexican, so naturally she enjoys loud music, a pint of chilled Guinness and huge family gatherings.

Stephanie C. Warriner

This is in response to Sen. Bill Sharer’s recent column, “Nature already decided who qualifies for marriage.”

To assume that “natural” marriage is based solely on what will benefit society, on the basis of a couples’ ability to procreate and care for children by encouraging “the traditional family,” indicates that you are clearly misguided.

First, according to the 2010 Annual Report of the New Mexico Judiciary there were, at years’ end, 11,504 open cases regarding domestic relations issues as they pertain to child involvement only (i.e. child support, custody and visitation, dissolution of marriage with custody). The report states that family court services pertaining to child access and visitation has seen a “substantial increase” in priority consultations from its 2009 report by a staggering 30 percent, which was already significantly higher than in 2008.

Furthermore, these increases come with considerable decreases in clinician hours; priority consultation and mediation caseloads continue to increase while the court’s resources continue to decrease. These statistics all apply to “the traditional family,” those heterosexual individuals who married in the “natural” way. After reviewing these numbers and observing our overburdened and underfunded court system, I fail to see how the “natural” marriage of the 11,504 open cases in our judiciary are benefiting our society.

Not procreation of child-rearing

Moreover, the assumption that gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry due to their biological inability to procreate with each other leads to the conclusion that marriage laws already need a radical change.

I find it rather interesting that you would suggest that “commitment and love are not sufficient reasons to alter the definition of marriage.”  For instance, if I were to take your premise seriously, infertile heterosexual couples – couples “nature already decided” can’t have children – should not be allowed to marry either. I highly doubt anyone would agree to that.

Yet, when I contemplate the response our society would have on the motives of people marrying, such as love, money, social status, even citizenship, it clearly denotes that love is a basis for marriage, not procreation or child-rearing.

Furthermore, if “the only reason the state has any business in marriage is because of children,” we would then have to mandate that marriage exists solely for procreation or child-rearing. We certainly can’t allow married couples to willingly remain childless, can we? So, as clear opponent to same-sex marriage do you not take the above principles seriously? Outrageous, right?

And if the state has such an interest in maintaining marriage for the children, what does that mean for the hundreds of children born in the State of New Mexico to unwed parents? Do those children deserve less from the state, or does that state have an obligation to force those parents to marry?

Agreeing on one thing

According to John Locke, a known advocate of natural rights and the Lockean theories that were invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence, what they sought was happiness.

So, if “marriage is natural law” and natural law is based on happiness, then the basis of marriage is happiness, regardless of age, ability to procreate or sexual orientation. I do agree with you on one thing: Marriage is far more than a legal contract endorsed by the state.

Warriner is a Democrat and life-long resident of New Mexico, and presently resides in Albuquerque with her fiancé. She is a 2008 graduate of New Mexico State University with a bachelor’s in government and philosophy. Currently, she is an EMBA student in the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico. In a nutshell, she is an Irish-Mexican, so naturally she enjoys loud music, a pint of chilled Guinness and huge family gatherings.