Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Input: Consider Input: US economy: Why I'm optimistic about growth in 2015. Could 2015 be the breakout year for the economy? Last week we got very joyful news :. All of this is good news as we ring in the new year . And the best may be yet to come . So why is the economy finally shifting into a higher gear? This isn' t a story of government-directed growth or stimulus spending . It's the opposite : Washington's role in the economy is starting to shrink after years of Obama administration activism . The private sector is starting to take over . The growth was propelled by a big rise in business investment, up nearly 9 percent; personal consumption, up 3.2 percent; and exports, up 4.5 percent . Government spending, which is a negative for the economy, grew by 4.4 percent, thanks to a big rise in military spending , but domestic spending is still restrained . The news was so good that even the threat that the Fed will now have an excuse to raise interest rates hasn't deterred the bulls on Wall Street . Here is the case for optimism going forward . First ,  a huge factor in the economic rebound has been the fall in energy costs . As the price of oil has fallen from $105 a barrel this summer to closer $70 by September,(and at the end of December it was at $53) the cost of oil imports has tumbled . Imports fell by nearly 2 percent , and this alone added almost 0.2 percentage points to GDP growth . Even that greatly understates the economic windfall from cheap energy . Production costs fall when energy costs do , so the supply of American-produced non-oil and gas products, such as manufactured goods, rises when gas is cheap . Gas prices should continue to fall , the good-news story rolls on , and the addition to GDP from energy should be even higher . Thank you, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota . And thank you, fracking . Second , businesses are clearly feeling less trepidation about investing , and some of the wet blanket of Obama's anti-business, anti-shareholder agenda has dissipated as the Republican Congress repels his worst ideas: cap-and-trade, minimum wage hikes, new taxes on the energy industry and massive new spending initiatives out of Washington . Gridlock now looks to be built into the political system for the next two years, and in many ways that's reassuring . Third ,  government spending has fallen a lot more than people think . Despite the boost in military spending in the last quarter, the biggest story of the U.S  economy over the last three years has been the retrenchment of government spending . Federal spending has fallen from 24.4 percent of GDP in 2009 and 23.4 percent of GDP in 2010 to 21 percent of GDP in 2014 . Even better news is that in the fourth quarter of 2014, federal spending as a share of GDP fell to below 20 percent, according to a new analysis by Dan Clifton of Strategas, an economic policy consulting firm . This is creating an anti-Keynesian boost to growth, because the government is taking fewer private sector resources each month . The 4 percentage points less of GDP that the government is spending means 4 percent more GDP for private businesses and families to spend . That's close to $700 billion a year more for private investment and construction and spending . This, by the way, shows the foolhardiness of the Keynesian notion of a government-spending free lunch . Five years ago the Obama economics team was talking about multiplier effects from higher federal outlays -- the stimulus bill spent $830 billion-- that would juice the economy with even more private spending . It never happened . Even President Obama's own economic analysis found the economy grew more slowly than it would have without the government debt- financed spending . The real effect of government spending is to crowd out private spending . A final reason for optimism is that the incoming class of Republican governors and conservative state legislators across the country should mean more growth policies coming out of state capitals . At least a dozen governors from Massachusetts to Illinois to Tennessee are talking about tax cuts to create jobs . So even if we don't get tax reform at the federal level , states should be providing an additional tax cut stimulus . Skeptics will say that Obama's executive actions on climate change, immigration, energy policy and so on will continue to be a restraint on growth . That's for sure . This recovery from recession is still nearly $2 trillion behind where we should would be if we had a Reagan-paced boom . This is still one of the most anemic recoveries , though it is belatedly picking up steam . It's also true that wages are still flat for most workers , so the big challenge for the economy is raising productivity so Americans get a well- deserved pay raise . As 2014 comes to a close, here's where we are : Interest rates are as low as they've been in 40 years ; inflation is tame, thanks to the surge in oil and gas output ; and corporate profits remain high . The rest of the world economy, from Germany to Japan to Russia, is a debacle . But that's all the more reason to bet on the USA in 2015 . And ,  no, Mr  President, you didn't build that .

Output: Could 2015 be the breakout year for the economy?


Input: Consider Input: Free community college isn't a joke for families who spend half their income to send a child. In the United States today, the odds of getting a degree are more tightly linked to family income than ever before, thanks to skyrocketing college costs and insufficient and misallocated federal and state financial aid funds . Although the federal government distributes about $170bn a year in financial aid to many types of students attending many types of schools , many low-income families still have to pay too much . Low-income families often end up paying about 40% of their family income for a member to attend community college - and , for four-year colleges, the bill can add up to a whopping 59% of a family's earnings . Even middle-class families may be asked to spend or borrow a quarter of their annual income to finance one child's attendance at a public university , while the costs of a private one are yet higher . As a result, many families of modest means are unable to afford college . Students from middle- and low-income families have also become more likely to drop out from public colleges and universities, leaving with debts they can't afford to pay back rather than degrees . But these are more than just personal tragedies : they represent a significant loss to America's economy and competitiveness for decades to come . On Friday, President Obama offered a simple, universal solution: free tuition for two years at community colleges for students who maintain a 2.5 grade point average, attend at least half-time and make steady progress towards completing their program . The federal government would cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college , and participating states would be expected to pick up the rest . The last time a president did something this bold on higher education was the original Higher Education Act of 1965 . Then, President Lyndon Johnson had a huge Democratic majority in Congress to support his proposal . President Obama, on the other hand, faces a tougher road in a government run by Republicans who are reluctant to support spending more money to help poor and middle class people - yet they should forego partisanship and take this legislation seriously . Instead of being available only to the poorest students(like Pell grants) free community college tuition would be available for all . The most powerful and enduring American social policies - Social Security, infrastructure investments like the highway system and indeed public education itself- have always benefitted everyone . As it stands now , America's outdated student aid policies simply aren't fulfilling their mission and are instead actively failing to make college affordable for all students . And, unlike many other proposals to fix the twin problems of college affordability and student debt focused on four-year programs, free community college has the potential to meet the immediate needs of employers , who often say that they cannot find potential candidates with needed skills . Community college programs in fields like nursing, technology and even management are designed to give students the skills that employers need more quickly than the average bachelor's degree program . Obama's plan is far from perfect . It is not a catch-all solution , and other major problems in American higher education still need to be addressed- including for-profit colleges that consume vast amounts of federal aid dollars but often leave students with little more than terrible debt burdens . The costs of private and public four-year institutions should not be ignored , so that the number of bachelor degree graduates will again rise . And the President's proposal only gives students a discount on tuition , which is just one part (albeit a major one) of the cost of going to school . Yet there is no question that Congress should, if anything, seek to outdo Obama with an even more ambitious proposal, rather than negotiate to reduce his package . They should not let this proposal die upon arrival . Families can't afford to wait through more years of inaction . [Editor's note: The author advised the White House on this effort, but was not compensated for her work .]

Output: As a result, many families of modest means are unable to afford college Students from middle- and low-income families have also become more likely to drop out from public colleges and universities, leaving with debts they can't afford to pay back rather than degrees


Input: Consider Input: The widening war in the Middle East. It has been a week of air strikes "whodunnit" mysteries in the Middle East . Firstly, Al Jazeera broke the news that Iranian F-4 Phantoms were bombing ISIL in Iraq . The Iranians initially denied being in the same airspace bombing the same enemies as the Americans but later came clean about their role to the Guardian . We've also heard rumours of the US A-10 "tank buster" arriving to support the US mission in Iraq although, again, nothing has been confirmed at this point . Then ,  on as normal a Sunday as Damascus has experienced in the last few years, the Syrian regime released grainy photographs supposedly showing the trails of Israeli aircraft following a bombing run on targets in the area . Among the rumoured sites that were hit were areas of Damascus International Airport . This caps a busy weekend for Syria's airbases which withstood ISIL attacks in the east of the country on Saturday . While at a tactical level it is impossible to understand what impact the strikes have had , at a political level it works for all sides . The Syrian regime has used its conflict with Israel to justify an internal state of emergency and restrictions to freedoms for decades and can now sell to the war weary public who remain in their controlled areas, the twin threat of ISIL and Israeli "terrorism" . For Benjamin Netanyahu, with elections looming, there is no better time for Israel's prime minister to act "prime ministerial" and remind voters of his eternal vigilance of the threat coming from Syria . Indeed ,  earlier in the week, Netanyahu said that Israel "is following the Middle East and what is happening very closely, with wide open eyes and ears- and a lot is happening ... We will continue to keep our fingers on the pulse and we will deal with these threats and these challenges, which never take time off" . In a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Syria's foreign ministry claimed the bombing happened to distract from the break up of Netanyahu's coalition . Israeli officials meanwhile, would neither confirm nor deny the attacks with an Israeli army spokesman saying he would not comment on the "foreign reports" . While Syrian state media should always be read with a healthy pinch of salt , if confirmed , the latest Israeli attack comes in a series that preceded the outbreak of civil war . There is a certain format to this low level state of eternal conflict between the two parties . Israel's September 2007 attack on Syria's al-Kibar facility was again initially unconfirmed but would eventually be told as a strategic masterstroke taking down Syria's nuclear programme at a critical time . Following the attacks, Syria responded with bombastic rhetoric over what it would do in the face of the strikes but nothing ever happened . Since the Syrian uprising and civil war, Israel's primary concern has been with certain types of hi-tech weaponry going to Hezbollah , which was used to explain strikes in January and May of 2013 . A year later and Israel responded to the very physical spillover of the Syrian conflict by launching strikes in June 2014 after shells were fired at their positions on the Golan Heights . Syria responded to the January bombings by warning of a "surprise" , but in fact their actual reaction has been predictably mute . The airspace over Syria has never been busier with different nations pursuing different enemies with metrics of success hard to distinguish among the smoke and debris of the destruction . This weekend's attacks, if they are eventually claimed by Israel, would further entrench the growing irrelevance of many of the region's borders as recognised and respected lines . While the focus of global attention has been on ISIL's dismantling of the Iraq-Syria border , the Lebanon-Syria border is also becoming functionally blurred and clearly no longer deters Israel's strategic decision makers . At the most immediate level, the strikes will likely embolden Assad to play a traditional nationalist card to strengthen support among his remaining loyalists . Over in Israel, Netanyahu can appear to be making statesmanlike decisions ahead of a likely bruising election and it cannot be a coincidence that he was in the US when the bombing happened - a nod perhaps to a US green light and the durability of that continued relationship .


Output: It has been a week of air strikes "whodunnit" mysteries in the Middle East