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The Supreme Court strikes down Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan, blocking debt relief for millions of borrowers
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Biden's loan forgiveness would have disproportionally benefitted the wealthiest Americans and acted as a wealth transfer upwards.
If the problem is that higher education is not affordable, a one-time debt forgiveness does not solve the problem, and it seems a lot like, "I got mine," then pulling the ladder up. I'd much rather we make higher education free for everyone like they do in Germany, permanently solving the problem by making higher education accessible to every American.
Perfect is the enemy of good. As long as this country is run by a majority of conservative politicians from both parties we will never have free higher education. Hell, half the country doesn't want kids to have free education at any grade level.
Hell, half the country doesn't want kids to have food when they go to school.
This is actually a similar deal that's been misrepresented to get the sympathy of left wing voters.
Poor kids already get food.
This push is aimed at giving kids whose families make too much to qualify for free food, free food. It's another handout to rich people.
I don't care if rich kids end up getting food even if they don't need it. If the means testing means even one kid who needs the food doesn't get it then I say scrap the means testing altogether.
I'd support a study to see if that's happening to any degree, and if it is, then yes, that sounds fair. Otherwise, no, schools need that money for much better things, like afterschool programs for at risk youth. And paying teachers.
Except this isn't even good, it's making the problem worse.
These two ideas you present aren't mutually exclusive. Thinking that they are is limiting.
Example: "Oh hey, yeah the current system is predatory and unfair. [Bam, loans forgiven.] Also, because of that injustice, we never want to put anyone into that position again [Bam, affordable higher education]." Do the rich get "more forgiveness" than the poor? Yeah, that's not really a problem if 100% == 100%.
I get that the rich people who pulled up the ladder after getting a cheap college education feel that loan forgiveness is cutting into their earning potential. But the needs of the rich do not and should not outweigh the needs of the many.
I really don't think it's the rich that are driving a lot of the opposition to this. I'm originally from a very poor rural Missouri town where the vast majority of people don't go to college. As you can imagine, they're not huge fans of the idea of subsidizing loans for people who are statistically going to go on to make significantly more money than they are anyway.
I have literally never seen anyone advocating for loan forgiveness advocating this. Ever. It's not even on the radar.
This is pure self-centered greed dressed up as "fairness".
There's something very funny about ostensible progressives championing a blatantly regressive wealth transfer.
But I'm sure you know enough about online political discussions to know that this isn't the kind of realism that's going to be positively received.
You're talking about two different problems. But good job conflating the two if that was your intention. Which it seems it was.
@nameless_prole Seems like the same problem to me: college isn't affordable.
We can address this in a systemic and meaningful way by making it affordable for everyone going forward, or we can make it affordable for a select few people who chose to take on debt at this one specific time. One addresses the problem in a meaningful way, the other does not. Canceling debt seems like a political ploy to gain favor with those who have student debt and it seems to have worked, given the downvotes garnered by every comment that isn't pulling out pitchforks over this.
On what basis do you claim these are different issues?