A corporation in need is a friend indeed. Student debt payers, not so much.

We taxpayers are always glad to bail out our corporate friends: railroads, airlines, auto, aviation, sometimes banks no one has ever heard of, and much more. What are our billions for if we can’t help friends in need?

Take for example the $290 Billion bailout we gave the savings and loans association a few years ago. Sure, that’s a lot of money but we couldn’t let all those regular folks who played by the rules suffer from questionable corporate management and a Congress who gave them free rein.

True, our generosity was tested a bit during the financial crisis of 2008. The Government Accountability Office says it cost our economy $22 trillion dollars. Our direct dollar amount bailouts to various businesses and corporations was so staggering that no one can even agree on how much it actually cost us. But it was a lot. It made the savings and loan bailout look like chump change.

Much of the blame is heaped on the mortgage-focused hedge fund managers. Yes, they knew they were doing wrong and no, they shouldn’t have done it. But a corporate friend in need is a corporate friend indeed, so it was only right to help them. No one went to jail, so everything was obviously legal.

We taxpayers continue to show our generosity to our corporate friends by giving them giant tax loopholes. A lot of the big ones pay no income tax at all. None. Zero. Zilch. We even give some of them millions in rebates. This proves that we appreciate and support good business.

We are just as good to our rich and super-rich friends, many of whom don’t pay any income tax, either.

Let’s look at our Ronald Reagan “Trickle Down” tax cut for the rich. The idea was that the rich and super-rich would plow their money back into the economy and create more jobs for the rest of us. But the rich, through their American corporations, thought “us” referred to “them” so they gave the jobs to their workers overseas.

You might not think that’s quite fair, but you have to admit that business is business and there are always winners and losers.

Even though “Trickle Down” turned out to be “Trickle Up” from the working class to the rich, George Bush gave it another chance. Then Trump, knowing he had enough corporate owned votes in Congress, gave the rich another big tax break.

So where did all that “trickle up” money go? Hard to say. Some suggest we look at the estimated $21 trillion (that’s Trillion with a “T,”) that’s hiding in legal off-shore tax shelters so the money can’t be taxed. That doesn’t seem very patriotic, but laws are laws and our country is governed by the rule of law.

Now we are faced with the problem of all these young people trying to wiggle out of their student loans.

It should be obvious to anyone, especially them, that: 1) Students are not a corporation, 2) They are not rich so they don’t own any legislators, and 3) They don’t vote in sufficient numbers to get serious political attention. Therefore we, as good taxpaying citizens, are under no obligation to help them.

Even though they did what they were supposed to do; even though they tried to play by the rules; and even though they were tricked by all kinds of fraudsters along the way—a deal is a deal.

So learn your lesson, accept personal responsibility, and pay up!

How else are you going to grow up and become good corporate citizens?

David Musser, now retired, made scaled-down guitars, dulcimers, and other instruments used by elementary students across eastern Kentucky in his hands-on music program of traditional Appalachian music and heritage.