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Elizabeth Warren’s new student loan relief plan is based on a very simple premise: the federal government should reward students who borrowed money and now don’t want to pay their student loans back. As far as students who honored their commitments and did repay their student loan obligations? Screw them.
Virtually every policy proposal in Warren’s campaign is based on Marxism. In the exploitative world of capitalism, with its rank injustice, it is only fair that some heroic figure (such as Warren and her close Senate colleague Bernie Sanders) come along to “level the playing field” and denounce the greedy schemes of the odious “1%.”
In Warren’s mind, it is grossly unfair that students, acting in a free market economy, took out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans to go to college. Apparently, they were unaware that that money would one day need to be paid back, and now they are angry about that.
Warren’s new ludicrous “loan forgiveness” plan is populist demagoguery at its finest. Under the terms of the plan, all public and private student debt would be eligible for that loan forgiveness. Which leads to the first glaring problem. How, precisely, is Elizabeth Warren going to obligate private banks to cancel debt for students? She is a law professor.
Where in any federal, state, or local legal code, does it ever suggest that any political figure has the authority to magically “wipe out” private debt with a bank or other financial institution?
Adam Minsky, writing in Forbes, was highly skeptical on this very point, so he reached out to the Warren campaign for clarification.
Never fear, because “Senator Warren’s team reached out [to Minsky] to confirm that private student loans would be eligible under her proposal. Still, it is unclear what legal authority would permit this (unless the federal government would simply pay private lenders directly.”
How delightful!
Warren is truly a compassionate soul and a virtuous social justice warrior, fighting for the common man against the wiles and avarice of evil financial institutions.
Now that Warren has a plan (without any legal precedent or authority, mind you) to eliminate private debt (obliterating a legally binding contract in the meantime), why stop at student loans?
There are a lot of Americans who have large mortgages, and I would bet that some of them would be thrilled to not have to pay them back. Warren should demand the elimination of mortgage debt as well! But why stop there.
A lot of people have taken out loans for cars and boats and motorcycles. Jet skis, recreational ATVs, snow mobiles as well. You’d have to have a heart of stone to think that they should be obligated to pay back those loans. Don’t the big banks have enough money already?
Warren’s popularity might soar in rural red America if she expanded her free-wheeling loan forgiveness program: surely that blue collar Louisiana guy who took out a big loan for his bass boat, that he knew he couldn’t pay back…or that minimum wage-earner in Alaska who loves snow-mobiling, but knew he could never afford his payments on his loan…well, these people should be entitled to loan forgiveness as well, right?
And…of course…what about credit cards?
Massive credit card debt could happen to anyone. Just ask the woman who was almost governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, who has a mere USD $70,000 in credit card, debt, and USD $227,000 in total, counting student loan debt, back taxes, and credit card debt.
It is patently unfair that in an America, where credit card companies and banks have so much money, that so many Americans have credit card bills that they have to pay back.
Warren should propose to cancel credit card debt as well.
Believe me…such proposals are coming. When it comes to the Democratic Party, populist demagoguery knows no bounds.
We hear from the mainstream media on a regular basis that Trump is a reckless and dangerous demagogue, playing into the vile and base instincts of the masses.
Yet, Trump has never proposed a plan to reward people for their own irresponsibility.
No one held a gun to anyone’s head to force them to go to college and take out tens or hundreds of thousands in student loans. That was their choice. It is hardly the responsibility of the US taxpayers, to the tune of USD $640 billion, no less.
That’s right $640 billion is what the plan is projected to cost in the first year…all paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy.
In the end, here is something that you will never hear from Sanders or Warren: “Take responsibility for your own life. Don’t take out a loan if you won’t be able to pay it back. Don’t go to college to major in sociology or women’s studies or anthropology or Marxist theory or some other liberals arts major that is unlikely to get you a good paying job.”
In today’s kingdom of insanity, where irresponsibility reigns supreme, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are the king and queen.
