@purdyday Please elaborate on how the 2 points you are making relate. The cost of a prisoner in California, the cost of an education the political class corruption and us being human are all separate issues on the surface.
Your statement rings loudly in a chamber of my mind that echoes back “Liberal”. You want to “demand as an American then a human being” that the “system” is somehow skewed to not “give” you something.
If you are referencing getting back to our Constitutional order, I strongly agree but if you think demanding anything and not doing anything yourself to make it happen.... you my friend have it backwards on how the system actually works.

@Undothechange I see where my comments may have caused you some confusion. But before I clarify, so you know, I do not like labels, am totally opposed to them in fact. But I do appreciate your attempt to reason through My comments were in direct relation to nationally shared debt and how the priorities of how our tax dollars, ( I pay them, as a self employed person), are mispent. How $75,000 spent on inmates, solves nothing but to promote an unending vicious cycle that feeds on itself. And how absurd it is, that we have students who are saddled with debt enslavement by financial and educational institutions, to only find that those dream jobs are not there, and are in fact outsourced to foreign workers, because its more profitable to the bottom line. Student debt is not eligible for debt forgiveness/bankruptcy. How are the graduates supposed to thrive under these conditions. How are they to start families and contribute to communities. As a tax payor, who only took medicare for one year, for my then 3 small children as a single mom, supposed to feel good about how my money is being spent and wasted, on political causes that have nothing to do with, whats good for our society as American's.

@purdyday thank you for your cognitive response.
Our tax dollars are not spent in ways that remotely resemble the principals outlined by the constitution.
To desire an outcome different then the result we are currently receiving is understandable and with reason, it still gives power to the government to do the same thing to our constitution. They (the politicians) use our tax money to buy votes. They promote programs to the public using money that they don't officially have the access for.
Free Education being only one of them.
If you are truly interested in changing how your money is spent think about how much of it gets taken out of your paycheck to pay for things that are truly constitutional then learn more about the balanced budget amendment, ending the federal reserve and term limits. Electing only the representives that promote these American Principals.
Even medicade and Social Security are fraudulent in their root. Some food for thought...

@Undothechange will look into the balanced budget amendment, and let you know. I agree with term limits and ending the federal reserve. Although the last is a web, that I have read, ncompasses global business interests. Am assuming the amendment proposes how that would be achieved? I say web, because the concept made me think of Bilbo rescuing the dwarfish from the spiders of Mirkwood forest, lol

Perhaps the prisoner and the indebted former student both made poor choices? Degrees in the Humanities lead to underemployment and a subsequent inability to thrive. Unfortunately, Humanities programs are the darlings of placement counselors, since institutions make a larger profit on them. Most students would be better served by trade schools or apprenticeships. They would make more money at a lower cost.

@DLHSHM1956 perhaps, it is also.youthful arrogance and unspoken and unamed pain that leads both, without wise guidance, to similiar prisons.

And, I'd say no children, certainly. Who's pushing for 16 year olds' right to vote? I know it sounds awful, but there should be a test to vote. Randomly picking things when you don't know anything at all about it is dangerous. How many millions of people voted in 2016 or 2018 who were gravely unqualified to do so? I mean, I'm not sure we need to know how many branches of Government there are, but there should be some kind of practical level of knowledge required--social policy issues at least--the a general understanding of the constitution. Man, even a lot of people who call themselves informed don't really know. I don't know enough about some issues, and I think we don't know enough about the underhanded political tricks embedded in bills. It's a mess--overwhelming.