what about people who worked their asses off to pay their student loans?
if we give/forgive one group but not others, what sort of message does this send to the rest who don't benefit from populist policies?
if we give/forgive one group but not others, what sort of message does this send to the rest who don't benefit from populist policies?
How about we let others at least not be underwater so the too can be out of student loan debt. Which if you bothered to read it is the focus this time around.
Is it perfect? No. Ideally you also shouldn’t have had to work your ass off to pay off these loans. But let’s not ignore trying to fix the current bad state of things just because some people managed to get out.
It’s like saying, well some people got out of a cult mostly fine so why do we bother to go after cults at all?
That is a very selfish statement. I was burdened with student loan debt for almost a decade, nobody cared that I was underwater, so why should we suddenly start caring for you and reward your poor financial decisions? Should we start bailing you out because of your poor crypto investments too?
Why does your financial problems need to be socialized but not others? You are arguing for absolving responsibility. You borrow someone's money you must pay it back.
And we subsidize corporate profits, and execute innocent people, and kill humans wars. That is fine in our names with our money.
So doing some good for comet students, who contributing and had no choice but to borrow, seems moral to me. But to be petty and moan about how it’s unfair when there is so much that is also unfair, that sounds small.
Just look at Israel. Gets attacked by a decentralized terror cell (its not just Hamas), gets criticized for going after said terrorists around the region (with enough backed by Iran) and the American president concerned with voters low key threatened Israeli prime minister that security agreement can be voided.
Same thing with Ukraine. Believed in US guarantees, now facing a totally different reality from where it was in 2022, with a reluctant American president who has to worry about voters.
All of the above populist policies are the result of generation like parent's comment, selfishly believing that they are somehow more deserving than others while offering no merit for that claim, haven't fought WW1 or WW2 or lived through Cold War or even experienced the War on Terror.
All this does is hurt the very people its designed to benefit in the long run (as always is with populist policies). It signals that they don't care about merit but virtue signaling away responsibility. From this I feel worried that American politics have picked the wrong fork in the road and we are going to see significant curb to our freedom, speech and common sense, globally.
What gives this generation the right to avoid responsibility and burden other generations with their poor financial decision and inability to take responsibility?
Also, it is kinda ridiculous that at 18 years old it is completely fine that I can take out an almost $10,000 loan, another $10 at 19 and so on and so forth. Making this decision when I am barely an adult, for many people the first time that they had any real sense of financial freedom with no one to tell them no. Differed payments so it's a problem for 4+ years from now and barely any education on what that actually meant.
Trying to compare this to crypto is stupid.
I am fine with paying for my loans, but it is ridiculous that I have been paying or my student loans for 10 years and I am still 2x what I originally took out. My sister is 5 times what she took out.
There is a fundamental problem with our education system and student loans and we need to address both of them. But let's not pretend that student loans are not largely predatory. We just don't call them that because they are for school and by the government.
Not everyone gets out of school and lands a job, or lands a job that will actually pay enough to pay off their loans.
Edit:
Since we really want to focus on "personal responsibility" here, I feel like we should remember that we don't think someone can handle drinking alcohol until they are 21. But by the time they are allowed to drink we are perfectly fine with them having taken out $32,500 in loans for school assuming they take the maximum at 18, 19, and 20.
How do we not see the problem here. I can get in more debt than I will likely ever be in except for buying a house (even a car may be less than that) before I am legally able to drink alcohol.
It sounds like we think that 18, 19, 20 year olds are not responsible, unless it is about getting into a life defining amount of debt that will seriously hamper your financial stability likely into your 40's.
Why? Unsecured loans are servitude. And it just inflates the cost of the thing lended for.
I don't think one can argue for usury from some sort of moral angle.
Credit cards are servitude?
On the basis of nobody being compelled to do labour, yes.
But I am newly impoverished by the higher taxes, inflation, and/or reduced spending on other government programs that is required to pay for the forgiveness program.
do you have dirty laundry too that you want people who have the time to do it for you because you are incapable of taking on that responsibility.
you argument is that because interest rate and inflation is a lot higher than when you took out the loan, you should not share that responsibility (it should be others) which is just lazy and incredibly childish.
If I ever do make enough to get hit with a Biden platform tax hike..I think I'm doing pretty okay :)
Another thing that annoys me is they legalized pot. Seems like a good idea in theory. But what about all the people that went to prison when it was illegal. Imagine having served five years in prison for selling pot and there is now guys selling it out of store fronts. How is that fair?
And another is immunotherapy. Someone I know got lung cancer and immunotherapy saved her life. Which is really unfair to my other friend that died of lung cancer twenty five years ago.
Making people who paid off their loans now pay off other people's loans as well (through taxes) is more like sending the first guy back to prison because the second guy is selling it from a store front.
And the feds still give out grants:
https://studentaid.gov/sites/default/files/federal-grant-pro...
They're the ones that are really getting left with nothing.
Trump's 2017 tax bill gave away trillions mostly to rich business owners. Another trillion was dumped on them during COVID via PPP.
So if we can forgive a fraction of the debt for the working class that came of age when a degree was sold as a requirement for entry into the middle class, then great, all for it.
I know people who were required to get an MS in education to teach. The only option for certain education specialties in the region was a private school. Teaching is hardly a lucrative career, the public service they provide is necessary, forgive the debt via PSLF.
The government makes policy all the time that benefits certain groups, that's reality
nobody forced you to go and take out a student loan. you did it. politics shouldn't even be a factor here.
we are arguing for basic responsibility that all adults in society must respect not at the whims of populist Presidents who only cares about votes.
if tomorrow Biden told young people to start taking drugs because we will socialize the cost, you would justify it too.
If millions of people do it, there is a systemic problem that needs addressing.
It can be both things at once.
No one is talking about removing personal responsibility. However when a pattern has emerged we have to look at how we got here in the first place and realize that there is likely something fundamentally wrong.
If it is found that there is that fundamental issue, the government has stepped in many times to address systemic issues, bailouts, etc. (I fully acknowledge that they have not done this equally, but that's a separate topic)
Besides, if you really just want to boil this down to numbers. People actually having money to spend instead of it just being stuck disappearing towards loans that they will never pay back, will have a positive impact on the economy.
This is a predatory system. You can pat yourself on the back for digging out of it, but you should want better for society. Nobody deserves to be chained to loans for life - not you, not your fellow citizen.
We shouldn’t keep a broken system just because your feelings are hurt.