Dowling shouldn’t be giving career advice
Don’t take career advice from Matt Dowling. In life, there are some things that some people just shouldn’t do. A person who is afraid of heights shouldn’t get a job as a window washer. A person who makes minimum wage shouldn’t buy an expensive foreign car. Matt Dowling, the freshman state representative from Fayette County, shouldn’t be giving career advice to anyone.
Yet, there he was, in March 13 commentary titled “Vo-tech education an alternative to college,” extolling the virtues of students getting vocational technical training. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. I know many people who’ve taken that path and have used those skills to carve out a decent living. College isn’t for everyone, so more power to them.
But when Dowling began his piece with, “It’s every student’s, and every parent’s nightmare. You graduate from college with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and you can’t find a job in your field,” I couldn’t help but wonder if he was writing about himself. When he followed that with, “You bide your time in another job that doesn’t fully make use of your skills, or pay you enough to live on.” I figured he was looking in the mirror as that passage was written.
Is Dowling forgetting that on December 16, 2016, a month after he narrowly won the election in a year when Trump created a tidal wave in the 51st Legislative District, the front-page story in his hometown newspaper was about Wells Fargo Bank of South Carolina filing a mortgage foreclosure on his $131,583 Uniontown home? The story revealed that Dowling, who has a college degree, had purchased the Charles Street home in May 2009 — but had stopped making house payments in July of the year he was running for office. It further stated that according to court documents, he still owed $127,838 including interest and late charges.
It seems to me that if Matt Dowling, after making mortgage payments for more than seven years, had only knocked $3,745 off of what was owed, and had gotten so deep in debt that the bank was trying to take back his house, he just might be the one living the “nightmare.” Given his own track record, he’s certainly the wrong person to be offering career or financial advice to anyone.
Kimberly Clark
Uniontown