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Comment by aristophenes | Hacker News Reader

Just imagine if that amount of money was spent on updated infrastructure. Effective country wide mass transit, better ports and airports. And the money spent would flow right into the economy and circulate over and over, would push construction companies and techniques forward.

Or towards clean energy generation, storage, and use. How fast would oil and coal be completely replaced? And again, money pumped into the economy to do so.

Or scientific research, space projects, could make large leaps, and again, that money flows back into the economy and multiplies.

Instead we want to make it so the people who hustled through college, picked a cheaper school, worked on the side, paid down their debt if they got any as soon as possible, that those people get the same outcome as someone who got a huge loan and played video games and got drunk every weekend, and spent $200,000 on a degree that only gets you a $50,000/year job?

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Incredible how people like you consistently think high student loan debt is exclusively due to immoral choices.

No one once in this topic has said "exclusively due to immoral choices".

You framed it as people who don't deserve a break--for reasons related to values like prudence and thrift--getting a break anyway. Fine. If some people did act virtuously but are still in tons of debt, in what way do they not deserve a break? Why bring up the Goofus and Gallant scenario at all? The question isn't whether people deserve loan forgiveness, it's a question of what's good for society as a whole.

"You framed it as people who don't deserve a break".

I'm quite sure you can't find a quote where I did this.

But anyway, you're focusing on this from a different point of view from the people you're arguing against. It's important to take note that there are (at least) 3 groups of people with interest in this conversation: people who've paid off their debt, people who have not paid off their debt because they've been unable to, and people who've not paid off their debt because they did not want to.

Those who've paid their debt are pointing out that it's unfair to retroactively support those who did not make the same frugal choices. (This is sort of what you're arguing against)

Those who are in debt because they are hard up for reasons beyond their control are arguing for paying off debt for anyone who has it.

I understand your interest at stake in saying we should forgive the debt. But you're being disingenuous if you ignore the point of the first group of people.

Instead of hashing out what's fair, let's give tax progressively and give a stimulus to everyone. This has the same benefit to those in debt, but avoids both the unfairness we're talking about and requires less government expense in paying accountants to determine who should get the benefit (because everyone gets it automatically).

Please show your work that infrastructure spending would generate more growth than forgiving over a trillion dollars of student loan debt.

I don't discount it might be possible, but I am asking you to prove it if you're stating it as fact. No imagining.

All those things you mentioned are worthwhile investments. Erasing student debt is also a good investment. It's a bubble waiting to burst and wreak havoc on the economy. We should do both.

I "hustled" like you said. I have no debt and better paying job than my partner, who has a masters degree in education and is a primary school teacher. As we're starting a family, we are considering that our savings will pay that debt.

This is a good proposal for everyone overall, even if you don't think it impacts you personally since you don't have a student loan yourself.

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