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Comment by delecti | Hacker News Reader

Why does improving things for future generations need to be held up until we can undo mistakes already done? The ladder got pulled up and some of us needed to scramble, but can't we lower the ladder back down for them anyway?

We can do both. We can help people already saddled with debt, and also do things to prevent future generations from being saddled with debt in the first place. People who managed to climb out of the hole (a demographic I am also part of) are the least in need of consideration.

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Because we're still alive and also have a future and if the goal is to help people, there is no reason to draw the line at "paid it off already" when money is fungible and can still be used to secure a more comfortable future. Having paid off debts doesn't mean you climbed out of the hole, it means you did the responsible thing when you could have easily stashed the money away for your own retirement.

I'm not saying we shouldn't help people like us, who already paid off large sums of loans. I'm asking why we should only help people still saddled with debt if we also help people like us at the same time. That's classic crab mentality.

> it means you did the responsible thing

Not all fields are lucrative enough that paying off a pile of loans is even feasible. With how college is often pushes as all but required for many kids, it isn't possible to make an informed decision.

We can help them by allowing students to default on their loans. It still costs us taxpayers but at least it keeps universities honest.

If you want to keep Unis honest, why not make them all public and financially regulated? Seems like the free market incentives should be removed from this essential service...

Democrats shouldn’t have wasted effort on trying to reduce student loans simply because the constituency (students) didn’t even give them recognition for it. They simply blamed Biden when SCOTUS blocked it.

But more generally we shouldn’t do one off things like this when we still haven’t fixed the cause of the problem. A better policy would be to start by making community college or first two years of college free or something like that.

I am onboard with free community college. Unsure kids can figure out their majors before they fork out beaucoup bucks for pricier institutions. They should also be able to default on loans they can’t repay.

Biden is guilty of pretense. He very well knew or should have know this had very small chance of this manoeuvre being upheld. It’s akin to Dems or Reps in the Congress opposing or in favor of something knowing the opposite of their stance is the forgone outcome just to look good to their constituents.

Biden is guilty of being a Democrat in the middle of a Republican putsch. If Trump had tried forgiving student loans it would have gone off without a hitch. Congress would have fallen in line and SCOTUS would have favored him. Everyone complaining that Biden was practicing communism would be praising Trump instead.

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