This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I wrote about the student debt issue a few days ago, conveying points my wife and I discussed about whether to forgive debt, or at least how to do so without simply forgiving ALL debt.

It is issue currently roiling this country.

The ideas we suggested:

• What about a proposal that knocked off a modest amount of debt for only the lowest earners and only for undergraduate study?
• What about a proposal to reward borrowers who chose careers in public service, or to expand an Obama Administration program helping those who got scammed by for-profit colleges?
• If a student took a low-paying job in an economically-deprived area on the premise that at least part of their college debt would be forgiven, what about a proposal to restore that incentive, especially if had been jerked away?
• What about a proposal to provide some relief for students, who, with their parents, chose less expensive state schools over high-priced private schools?

Then, yesterday, I read a “notable and quotable” piece in the Wall Street Journal, which raised a point we had missed – or at least that I decided not to raise.  This:  The usual focus on student debt excuses colleges and universities for dramatic increases in tuition.

I didn’t raise this because I thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, to tell colleges – especially private ones – they couldn’t increase tuition if they believed such increases were warranted to stay financially afloat.

Mounting this kind of regulatory effort would probably scattershot at best, whatever the merits of the inquiry.

But, in the Wall Street Journal story, reporter Bret Baier interviewed
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy and the senator responded in this way:

“BAIER: Last thing, student loan forgiveness.  This is a big debate.  And, you know, you talk about working families.  You talk about folks who don’t go to college and you’re talking about wiping out student debt.

“There is a former Education Department lawyer served under President Obama who wrote:  If this issue is litigated, the more persuasive analysis tends to support the conclusion that the Executive Branch likely does not have the unilateral authority to engage in mass student debt cancellation.

“Where are you?  Does it have the authority and are you for this?

“MURPHY:  I think it has the authority to do it.  I would support a more limited forgiveness of debt.  I’m one of the few members of the Senate that still has student debt.  I don’t need my debt forgiven.

“I also think that this focus on debt excuses the colleges for this dramatic increase in tuition.  I sometimes think that our party spends a little bit too much time talking about the debt and not enough time talking about the cost of the degree, because that’s where the real problem is.

“We’re going to be in a perpetual cycle of having to forgive debt if college continues to spiral upwards to $100,000 a year.

“So, I think a limited debt forgiveness proposal is legal.  I would support it, but I think it’s a mistake to put all of our eggs in a basket.”

Murphy is right.  The student debt issue is more than about those who have incurred debt.  It is about those who have imposed the debt.