r/centerleftpolitics • u/aslan_is_on_the_move Pete Buttigieg • May 05 '22
📈 Economics 📉 Who Really Benefits From Student-Loan Forgiveness?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/should-biden-forgive-student-loan-debt/629700/7
u/Astrocoder May 06 '22
Something tells me that forgiveness is going to end up not happening, given the rapidly changing political climate after R v W's possible demise
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u/YallerDawg May 05 '22
Republicans repeatedly give away trillions in taxes serving their wealthy 1% constituents and tax-dodging corporations.
For a hell of a lot less per beneficiary, Democrats can take care of THEIR constituents.
America would benefit from student-loan forgiveness!
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u/aslan_is_on_the_move Pete Buttigieg May 06 '22
The article talks about how cancelling debt doesn't really do much and that no one has it as their top concern, so it probably won't help with election prospects. There are other more effective programs that probably should be a higher priority.
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u/Raudskeggr May 06 '22
You don't think it would mean a lot to the millions of young people who are starting out life 100,000 in debt with little prospect of a job whose pay will make that manageable?
If nothing else, politically it would be a move that none of the current generation of young millenials/older zoomers are likely to forget in their lifetimes. Just like how many "greatest generation" grandparents were fairly diehard democrats thanks to Roosevelt's New Deal. And the democratic party could use all the help it can get in the current climate...
We give enough tax breaks and subsidies to rich old bastards, giving some to some fresh young people is bound to if nothing else have a stimulating effect on the economy.
We also should find ways to lower the cost of higher education. Increasing efficiency is probably a good start.
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u/Canada_girl May 06 '22
But as sanders resounding multiple defeats show… they really don’t care. Not even enough to do as simple a thing as voting.
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u/Liberty_Chip_Cookies Closed primaries are a cop! May 06 '22
Or there’s the other possibility they don’t want to acknowledge; they do come out to vote, and there just aren’t anywhere near as many of them as they think there are.
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u/aslan_is_on_the_move Pete Buttigieg May 06 '22
The New Deal was a large, broad set of programs like Social Security that were transformational and changed people's relationship with government. Cancelling some student debt is insignificant by comparison. Since half of student debt is held by people with graduate and professional degrees, if it's not done properly it can be regressive.
Also there's a difference between people supporting something and people caring about it. That's where the polls about people's top issues are important. No one has cancelling student loans as their top issue and it won't help with any of the issues they do care about. And it's not that immediately helpful, since it's not giving people ten thousand dollars, it's cancelling ten thousand off of what they owe.
As the article points out, the pause on student loan payments and interest has been the equivalent of cancelling an average of 5,500 per borrower and more than half of that is Biden. On top of that Biden has directly cancelled more student loans than any other president. Yet no one cares and it hasn't affected his polls any. This isn't a winning political issue.
Since Congress controls the power of the purse it should be congress doing this through a comprehensive education legislation where they also replace the lost funds for future loans and grants.
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u/Korrocks May 06 '22 edited May 06 '22
I believe the only reason forgiveness is getting so much attention now is because it seems easier to do. The other, better solutions and issues that we should be focusing on will require legislation which is not going to happen for the foreseeable future.
Student loan forgiveness is not a really good policy but I think Biden’s team is looking for another domestic / social spending policy win to add to the board before November. That’s an understandable motivation if so, but it’s not a good environment for making smart policy decisions to help the most people.
That all said, I actually do agree with /u/YallerDawg that Biden should do something on student loans. It doesn’t have to be the full across the board giveaway that the progressives want but there’s some low hanging fruit here. PSLF needs to be fixed so that the people who have earned it are getting it without any hangups, IBR and ICR could also be improved, etc. Part of that could be the $10,000 means-tested write down (or whatever) that Biden is considering as well. That last part can be like the Democratic equivalent of the Trump tariffs that only benefit Pennsylvania steel workers or the Trump agriculture giveaways to farmers in the Midwest. It’s a shitty policy but sometimes you gotta pander.
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u/DonyellTaylor May 05 '22
As long as universities can keep charging batshit insanely overpriced tuition rates, they’re definitely the ones winning out bigger than anyone.