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This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible enough to save and pay off their loans early, or who like me worked their asses off through college to be able to graduate without debt, and use it to pay those who were irresponsible enough to dig themselves into a massive debt hole. I have little empathy for people with student or credit card debt. You took a deal knowing the terms full well, you have no right to complain that you owe the money you already spent but never earned.

jvm 7y ago
Not to mention that the beneficiaries are by definition college educated, meaning they are currently or will in the future be among the highest income groups in the country!
krastanov 7y ago
Like you, I have hard time empathizing with people that put themselves in debt "knowingly". It is hard to not think they are just stupid. The issue is, I was lucky to have the opportunity to be educated about these risks early enough. I have hard time blaming people of not knowing something that was never alluded to when they were growing up (e.g. credit is not free money). Otherwise I agree with you, this is a ridiculous solution to an otherwise real problem.
- nightski 7y ago
  Maybe Bernie should fix the fact that our education system does not even include financial literacy courses instead of just mass forgiving debt. EDIT: Apparently down voters on HN are against financial education in our public schools.
  - krastanov 7y ago
    The etiquette is to not discuss votes on your comments. For what is worth, I suspect people dislike the snideness and lack of effort in the comment, not the notion of financial education.
rhino369 7y ago
Especially since our federal loan programs have very generous repayment plans. 20 years paying no more than 10% of your disposable income and it gets wiped out. I paid 264k plus interest. It’s bullshit to tax me further to pay off loans for people who can afford to pay it.
- jonahbenton 7y ago
  This "tax" would not affect you in the slightest, unless you own an HFT firm.
  - aaomidi 7y ago
    But someday they might be a millionaire!!
  - rhino369 7y ago
    He is proposing taxing all stock transactions .5%. I’d pay that and .5% I move my nest egg around adds up. And his projections are pants-on-Fire stupid because he doesn’t account for the fact all high freq trading would move offshore if they taxed trades .5%. Sanders is either an idiot or a bullshitter.
    - jonahbenton 7y ago
      You may be a market timing genius and/or unicorn day trader but generally speaking nobody beats the market and nobody should be moving their own nest egg around, which usually only makes the brokerages money.
      - repolfx 7y ago
        So the transaction fees get passed on to the people who buy into the funds (except, buying into a fund is also a "financial transaction" so may also end up being taxed). Moreover this logic seems to assume HFT is useless. It's a source of liquidity. Everyone who directly or indirectly invests in the stock market ends up paying for higher liquidity - it's just a case of how easily you can see it.
taneq 7y ago
To do this fairly it would have to be a kind of retroactive scholarship for all students, where you would be refunded your tuition as well. Of course, then there are the people who chose not to study at university in the first place for financial reasons. I don't think there's a completely fair answer.
baybal2 7y ago
> This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. But it will work. It's outrageous, but it works (in getting you elected.) If you remember, there was a guy called Vladimir Lenin. He used slogans like that to the effect of "social earthquakes" I will not be surprised if 99% of people in hopeless debt trap will vote for that without a second of hesitation.
kenhwang 7y ago
I agree this is straight up pork barrel politics, not good policy, and rewards poor behavior without anything preventing the problem from happening again. A simpler, fairer proposal: give _everyone_ who attended college in the last X years $Y per year attended. At least that way the good actors aren't punished to subsidize the bad ones, and everyone is still drawn towards lower cost programs and valuable degrees.
- averros 7y ago
  Even simpler and fairer proposal: don't steal or vote for government thugs to steal on your behalf.
- basch 7y ago
  It should be more of a sliding scale. Each year further from today gets less.
  - kenhwang 7y ago
    Sure, make it a chart. If you paid tuition during X year, you get $Y per month attended.
    - basch 7y ago
      Thats about as close to fair as you can get. Maybe with some kind of interest reimbursement, for people who paid loans not cash. Also minus any tax credits youve gotten, for paying interest or principal.
pytester 7y ago
>Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible "Financially responsible" has become a euphemism for "rich and assumed to be responsible". I know a bunch of people who are not particularly responsible with their money (splurging) but they are beneficiaries of a lot of unearned income (interest, dividends, rent) and I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why this unearned income shouldn't be taken away and used to fund the kind of education that improves the overall wellbeing of society. This is the point where somebody tells me that those people don't have enough money to fund this kind of thing (bullshit), or that Bernie won't target them he'll target you (bullshit) or that if you tax them they'll just run away to Panama (there was a study that demonstrated that when their taxes are jacked up they didn't even run away from New York to New Jersey).
- aaomidi 7y ago
  This is extremely true. Financially responsible is also just "privileged." They don't understand how different the state of primary education in the US is. Two school districts within 20 miles of each other are wildly different. 1. https://www.philasd.org/ https://www.philasd.org/ 2. https://www.lmsd.org/ https://www.lmsd.org/
- cloakandswagger 7y ago
  It's much easier to rob someone when you convince yourself that they didn't actually earn what they have. This us vs them reductionism is seen in the early days of any communist system (the mass killings come a bit later)
  - aaomidi 7y ago
    Ah yes, communism. This isn't us vs them - this is us vs... us. Everyone should want to allow people to access education.
    - cloakandswagger 7y ago
      >I know a bunch of people who are not particularly responsible with their money (splurging) but they are beneficiaries of a lot of unearned income (interest, dividends, rent) and I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why this unearned income shouldn't be taken away and used to fund the kind of education that improves the overall wellbeing of society. This is the point where somebody tells me that those people don't have enough money to fund this kind of thing (bullshit), or that Bernie won't target them he'll target you (bullshit) or that if you tax them they'll just run away to Panama (there was a study that demonstrated that when their taxes are jacked up they didn't even run away from New York to New Jersey). Emphasis mine
axaxs 7y ago
This is essentially my problem with it. I did very well in high school, and had many many offers to attend very expensive universities, many of which offered no academic scholarships. I made a conscious decision not to take on that much debt, and had a much longer road to where I am now, and probably a lessened overall outcome. But I'm debt free. I'm too old to care now, but it's not fair to kids out there with mindsets like mine, to just start erasing student debt wholesale. In that situation, community colleges cease to exist and universities have incentive to skyrocket prices even higher.
- basch 7y ago
  If we disregard "its not fair to me, when i paid mine off" and "this reduces my buying power because everyone is as well off as I am" as arguments, my problem with this is that it excuses the schools for jacking up rates as loan money became available. This is a bailout, and the banks / schools are the beneficiary. No more loans that will never be paid back. Schools get every inflated dollar from the last two decades. Instead of taxing everyone, shouldnt the schools who took the money be paying in for everyone they trained who is underpaid? https://thehill.com/opinion/education/442497-colleges-need-to-have-skin-in-the-game-to-tackle-student-loan-debt https://thehill.com/opinion/education/442497-colleges-need-t...
  - AareyBaba 7y ago
    We should just call this a bank bailout and that will shutdown this proposal. I prefer Andrew Yang's proposal to give every American a $1000/month divided funded by a value added tax. You could use that money to chip away at your student loans and it's fair because every citizen gets it.
    - basch 7y ago
      And rent/mortgages would instantly go up $1000/m. And then we are back to a bank/realestate bailout.
cjbprime 7y ago
> Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible enough to save and pay off their loans early Bernie wants to take tax money and work out what the best thing to spend it on is. It's disingenuous to imply it's any more taken by force than taxes already are. Significant portions of your taxes already go towards people who have, by your definitions, behaved irresponsibly. I don't know whether this is the best use of that money -- whether there's something else that would have much better effects on welfare and economics in general. I also don't have any student loan debt from my university degree, though it's because I grew up in a country that doesn't charge money for education. The system of being unable to discharge student loan debt via bankruptcy seems brazenly corrupt, though, such that demolishing the whole thing may be an appropriate response.
- jquery 7y ago
  >I grew up in a country that doesn't charge money for education. Your country almost certainly does charge for education, you're just shielded from the immediate cost. >The system of being unable to discharge student loan debt via bankruptcy seems brazenly corrupt, though, such that demolishing the whole thing may be an appropriate response. Alternatively, going forward we could allow the discharging of student debt in bankruptcy with the knowledge that this would prevent many useless degrees from being funded and correspondingly would result in a large decrease in higher education spending. I'm fully in favor. For far too many people college is merely an extended adolescence and creates perverse signaling issues when it comes to getting a good job. As a nation, we should be more mindful of the degrees we decide to fund and the amounts dedicated to such degrees. Your nation, which "doesn't charge money for education," is almost certainly doing this.
  - omnimus 7y ago
    "many useless degrees" is very thin ice to walk on. If there are people wanting to learn something then it's not useless. Looking at it from economical standpoint only is just very narrow view. Education is not training for a job. There is value in knowledge. Even if you think only about economy it's very hard to predict what will be profitable. Dont forget that if someone is studying "useless degree" than it's enough burden to know you might not get job in that field. I think it's wonderful if anyone has a chance to have a try at higher education. Also as many countries show education doesn't have to be expensive and putting financial limits on them keeps them efficient.
narag 7y ago
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. Is there any chance this will really happen? If the answer is no, don't waste your precious keystrokes. If the answer is yes, ask for more: not only they cancel the existing debt, but they also give you your payments back. Problem solved!! :)
jonahbenton 7y ago
"...forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible..." I am no fan of Bernie's but this description is completely wrong. A transaction tax would have little to no impact on ordinary savers/investors. It would have zero to do with credit card debt. It would at most represent a slight redistribution from assets generally controlled by the 0.1% to the top 50%. The place where that tax would pull from in the financial system is currently mined by HFT bots. To the extent that this impacts you, you are already being skimmed by them, you just don't know it. The financial system is REALLY REALLY big. Hundreds of $T change hands DAILY.
- kenneth 7y ago
  Money is fungible. Saying that the expenditure is funded by a tax on Wall Street is just clever bullshit to make it look like the taxpayers aren't on the hook for this absurdly expensive amnesty. The truth is those are two entirely orthogonal issues that affect the federal budget. If not this amnesty, the tax could fund something else. If this tax isn't enough, the money for this bill will come from somewhere else.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    If it's clever messaging and it works, it works. Some cohort in the country is going to be on the hook; it's up to democracy to pick which cohort that is (congressional representation, all that jazz). Right now, Millennials are on the hook (carrying the debt). They're also now the largest voting cohort [1], having edged out Boomers this year [1]. Do you think they're going to stay on the hook? It's unlikely (~1.6 million Boomers die each year, about 1.3 percent of the Boomer cohort); Millennials will continue to reshape state and federal government each election cycle. I imagine the cohort of voters who took on large amounts of student loan debt and successfully paid it off in a short duration of time is exceedingly small (but vocal!). Life isn't fair. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials...
oceanghost 7y ago
You're right but you're wrong. You're blaming students for an outrageous situation and saying they should have chosen simply to be poor.
rsj_hn 7y ago
It's important to understand that the government can't make loans disappear, all it can do is transfer the burden of the loans from one group to another. In this case, we have transfers from those who did not go to college or went to college and did not take out loans to those who did. A regressive transfer. Then there is the issue of creating more imbalances. We send far too many people to college. Germany, for instance, sends 1/3 of its population to college (which lasts only 3 years and is quite strict) and 50% to trade schools. We have no trade school program and tell everyone to go to college, yet we struggle teaching useful skills to people. Something is broken in our college system, costing twice as much as the OECD and yet not doing a good job of producing skilled workers. This is not a system that should be further subsidized, rather we should spend much less on our universities and divert resources to trade schools. A bloated, dysfunctional system is not deserving of a bailout. Then there is the basic issue of fairness. Colleges have huge endowments, employ excessive number of administrators in make work jobs and hold substantial real estate holdings -- these should be depleted first in any bailout of the system before we start tapping taxpayers. If a college is graduating large numbers of students who can't repay their college loans, that college should be liquidated as it is socially harmful. Liquidate the endowment, sell off the real estate and convert it to trade schools. Finally, college educated kids are pretty privileged. We should focus on those who did not go to college. On a personal note, my family did not have a lot of money. I was a decent student and had good SAT scores -- I got lots of brochures for Tulane, Brown, and other universities that I knew I couldn't afford. Instead, I lived at home and worked, and went to a community college on full scholarship. I got good grades and then lived at home and went to the local state school, also on a transfer scholarship. I worked. Then I went to an "elite" grad school, also on scholarship. I graduated with no debt. I could easily have gone to a private uni and been saddled with lots of debt, and then maybe clamoring for a bailout. But that would be irresponsible. There are plenty of low cost community colleges and state schools that offer scholarships to even half decent students. I am not looking to bailout anyone who made worse choices. I understand that people can suffer misfortune, in which case the school they went to should bail them out.
deleted 7y ago
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Macross8299 7y ago
I dunno what sort of message this is supposed to send to people. "Fuck you if you were a big enough sucker to pay back your debts"?
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  I keep seeing this sentiment in this thread, but I'm not seeing the logic behind it explained. Normally the fact that other people have already committed their own time and money to deal with some issue doesn't mean we shouldn't address that issue going into the future. What's different in this case?
  - foobarchu 7y ago
    I think its interesting to apply the sentiment to other things. Would a state funded levee system be a "fuck you" to people who lost homes in the flood that prompted them? It's being paid from their taxes, after all. Is the chicken pox vaccine a "fuck you" to people who had it when they were young before it was available? Are surgery advances a "fuck you" to people who previously got an amputation? Was the introduction of the GI Bill a "fuck you" to everyone who served in the armed forces being it? After all, veterans pay taxes.
    - kennyadam 7y ago
      No, it's all just zero-empathy privileged people who don't want to share.
      - Macross8299 7y ago
        Yeah, I'm so privileged that I took on debt to go to university for a difficult subject and had to work and make lifestyle sacrifices to pay it back rather than voting for someone to give me a free ride.
        happytoexplain 7y ago
        Regardless of whether it would work well, the proposal is to help people who are suffering inside a horrifically broken system, not to give indiscrminate free rides to people who haven't even made the decision yet. The notion that massive tragedy is OK if the fault can be placed with the victims under the argument that they demonstrated financial incompetence is simply antithetical to civilization. Otherwise, why not ignore anything that can be placed under the umbrella of personal responsibility? High suicide rates? Who cares, it was ultimately the dead's decision. Don't look into it. The idea that people deserve this and it's not fair to those who already made it through seems like a purely emotional reaction, and an extremely reductionist one, considering the dramatic complexity of higher education's actual value and how much risk is "worth it".
jbigelow76 7y ago
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. ... I have little empathy for people with student or credit card debt. You took a deal knowing the terms full well, you have no right to complain that you owe the money you already spent but never earned. What a load of horse shit. Once student loan debt couldn't be discharged through bankruptcy it fell to the perils of moral hazard. You want to pursue an English Literature degree at Harvard, by all means proceed, if that person footing the bill[2] then has skin in the game as to whether that debt can be repaid. My solution to the student loan crisis, federalize all Sallie Mae [1] loans, let the lenders take a bath like when Washington Mutual was federalized during the Recession and then let a real market start underwriting student loans. [1] https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/ https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/ [2] Edit: original was person/lender
supercanuck 7y ago
>By the numbers: Sanders plans to pay for the action by hitting Wall Street with a tax his campaign says will raise $2.2 trillion over 10 years, according Vox.
- jquery 7y ago
  As we learned in 2008, taking $2.2 trillion from "Wall Street" will have major effects on "Main Street" (we nearly had a total economic meltdown over Wall Street holding a "mere" $0.5T in toxic assets). Wall Street is not some wholly separate entity from the rest of the economy.
- qub1t 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_... This is some relevant background reading for anyone who thinks Bernie's tax revenue numbers are realistic.
  - Macross8299 7y ago
    >The volume of futures trading fell by 98% and the options trading market disappeared You have to wonder what the second-order effects of the options trading market disappearing (or being severely reduced in volume) would be. I know there are some pretty important businesses that depend on options to hedge against commodity prices. Airliners and oil come to mind.
    - ptah 7y ago
      i would say getting rid of this market makes the financial system healthier. 2008 crash could have been avoided with something like this
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Would it? It wasn't options trading that caused 2008; it was bad home loans.
echo419 7y ago
As someone with $40k in student loans remaining from my econ degree(after paying off $10k+), I'm fully in support of this. I don't know what "we" you're appealing to, but I certainly consider this "fair" in the sense that I'm more than happy to give back to my community, fellow students, and younger generations so that they don't have to struggle through the same things I did. It sounds like this position is that others be punished for/with student loans because they decided to get an education. 1. According to the article Bernie is proposing a 0.5% tax on trades, and a 1% tax on bonds. Given that ~half of all Americans invest in the stock market[0] (and given how Wall Street has acted) this doesn't seem to be a big issue in my opinion (obviously others will disagree with me). 2. I do have empathy for those who have taken on such debt, because such debt should not in aggregate be so large as to impact the economy adversely (which it has, and will continue to do via consumer spending etc...). Additionally, I know very few, if any teens who are able to understand the intricacies of debts/loans, let alone adults(I'm sure this argument will be mis-characterized). It may sound grandstanding, but I genuinely believe that we should care more about the medical, financial, and social/political well being of others in this country, and I think this is a good first step for that. 0: https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/investing/trump-stock-market-americans/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/investing/trump-stock-marke...
- kenneth 7y ago
  I mean, of course you support a proposal to wipe off 80% of your entire student debt. I don't think you get to call it "giving back to the community" when you're a net taker under the proposal.
  - echo419 7y ago
    I'm glad you seem so willing to engage in constructive/effective arguments regarding the proposal, rather than how the proposal should be framed/discussed in terms of individuals. And I'm certainly glad you saw that my other points were reasonable and saw fit not to refute them at this point. :) However, even under this proposal I would be a contributor as I invest in the stock market, which is the entire point of taxes/a community(it's literally giving back to the community/the cost of living in a society). So no, I would contribute my fair share, and arguably get less out(compared to others) since I've already paid $10k+, and I have no problem with that, at all. Like I said, I'm happy to help others given the position that I'm in, which is better than some and worse than others.
noobermin 7y ago
The logic of this "not being fair" sounds more to me like "if I couldn't have it, no one else can!" I for one would be happy even if they just made college tuition free without canceling the debt. I'd be happy if younger people could get an education without having to worry about things I had to. I want to see others succeed, I don't want to hold them back because they have to suffer like I did.
- tshaddox 7y ago
  I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you say. This isn’t something like “my childhood was tough, therefore I want everyone’s childhood to be tough.” Just because someone has paid off their college debts does not mean that the effects of that debt have ended. Obviously the effects of that opportunity cost still exist. That money could have been spent on other things, like a mortgage. So the idea of forgiving all current student loan debt without any consideration of people who are still living with the effects of their previous student loan debt is pretty crude, and I think there’s a strong argument for calling it blatantly unfair.
  - foobarchu 7y ago
    This can go either way, though. It's just as easy to argue that cancelling student debt is a highly effective form of economic stimulation. There are droves of people who are actively putting off large purchases like houses and cars, and delaying having children, almost entirely because of student loan debt. Removing a huge ongoing monetary obligation from a massive section of people who want to spend is a lot more likely to help the economy than more tax cuts for the already wealthy who are probably going to hoard that wealth away.
    - Wellshit 7y ago
      What's to prevent people from going to 'study' and amass huge amounts of student debt and then say "But it was cancelled for them" ?
    - dantheman 7y ago
      Why not just give everyone 100k, people could buy houses cars, etc.. it'd really help those who couldn't even dream of going to college, even with loans. It'd drive up housing and everything else.
acconrad 7y ago
Let's unpack a few statements here: > financially responsible enough to save and pay off their loans early What if you are financially responsible and you don't have enough to save and pay off early? > like me worked their asses off through college to be able to graduate without debt I did too. How much debt did you have? As a college student, I could pay off $30k in debt with a few CS internships. No number of Google summer internships could pay off $200k in debt, though. Especially if you tack on more debt for medical school. Do you think it's feasible that there are people who bust their ass and still can't graduate without debt? > irresponsible enough to dig themselves into a massive debt hole. This is the real part I question. Who dug themselves into the hole? The parents? The kids? What did you know at 18? If you can barely drive, vote, or drink, how could you possibly predict the future that your financial choices might cause ruin to you and millions of others of your generation? Can you, at the age of 18, as the world is telling you to go to the best college you possibly can, truly grasp the gravity of the decision you're about to make? > I have little empathy for people with student or credit card debt. Then you have little empathy. At 18, you didn't know the terms "full well." Most kids were duped. Most parents were fooled. The news said "if you get a college education, you're going to make more money." It still says that. So they make a connection and they don't question it. Even if you have to go into debt, you still make more money. The problem is, does making more money actually net you more money. Not a lot of people really thought that through. So that said: is that worth punishing them? Is punishment the right thing? Why can't we look at this from compassion and caring, rather than punishment and justice? A generation was tricked into a bad ride. My generation. I graduated (with debt paid off in a year) when the economy tanked, in 2009. It couldn't have gotten worse for me. And even though I'm part of the cohort that should most want to have everyone suffer the way I did and pay off debt, I don't. Cause I don't want suffering. For anyone. Even if they get a better deal than me. That's how progress goes: we give the younger ones a better chance than we did. Education shouldn't be slavery. You shouldn't want this for others. This is a way out, and it likely won't come to fruition this way, but it is a way towards compassion.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Plenty of people at 18 have the personal responsibility and financial awareness to not get a useless degree in exchange for a massive amount of debt. > That's how progress goes: we give the younger ones a better chance than we did. Culture matters. Instilling a sense of personal and financial responsibility in the next generation is the best thing we can do to help them. Giving the most irresponsible people of our generation a massive handout is the opposite of that. Think about it, if an entire generation of people who came before you were absolved of tens (or hundreds!) of thousands of dollars of bad debt, why on earth would you think it was a good idea to pay off your debt and instead not just wait around for the same handout?
mmusc 7y ago
Some argue that this debt that has to be repaid 'no matter what' is part of what is wrong in today's societies and economies. Here read this book Debt: The First 5,000 Years https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt
what_is_this 7y ago
This would be paid for by taxes on investments, and the result of this would be increased consumer spending. Which leads to good results for investors
pimmen 7y ago
I have some empathy for them because having a college degree is becoming less optional if you want to partake in today's economy, especially if you want to move up relative to your poorer parents who probably don't have the support and/or network for you to find your way to a good career. Sure, it's not required to have a financially stable background and college degree to make it but saying that forgoing them is a reliable path is not honest. So, in that light, I would say that I don't think all debts should be cancelled but I do think we should remind ourselves that during the New Deal there were plenty of people who said that it would be unfair for the government to fix jobs and social security for lazy bums. We don't have to go to either extreme, cancelling all debts or showing no sympathy what so ever.
mc32 7y ago
I think there are a couple of things that as a society we’ve failed to do to different extents; 1. Promote vocations and vocational schools (some people are better off here). It could be the traditional HVAC, welder, nurse or new types like front end development, aspects of IT. 2. Price loans according to prospects. Getting a loan for literature or writing should cost more than a loan for biology, informatics or medicine. Obviously predicting future demand is imperfect, but we also know what majors will likely have low demand into the future.
Simulacra 7y ago
But isn't this the definition of socialism: Taking from one and giving to another?
Balgair 7y ago
I disagree so very much! Default rates on student loans are about %40. Home mortgages are about 4% and auto loans are about 6%, for comparison. I've lived this too. My family was able to send me and my siblings to college on our own dimes. We worked our butts off to help the family pay for our schooling. I spent many hours after school in the family business, and many summers too. I had less of a teenage/childhood due to this. I contributed my income after graduation so my siblings could get through without debt too. I sacrificed my time and money for the betterment of my family. My family did the same for me. Hopefully, I have proven that I have sacrificed enough to be considered a real voice in this conversation. I would LOVE to cancel all these debts. I've seen my friends and other family members struggle with these $800/mo debts for nearly a decade now. It does nothing for nobody but some rich jerk. I'm tired of seeing the people that I love struggle and be punished for trying to help the world. Yes, fine, I'm better off because of my sacrifice and my family's. And yes, fine, wiping out that debt would 'invalidate' that sacrifice, whatever that means. But I'd much rather sit on my porch my friends and drink a beer, rather than sit alone on my porch and drink 2 beers while my friends drive for Uber on the weekends. Enough is enough. This pain is unnecessary and thus is cruel.

jvm 7y ago

Not to mention that the beneficiaries are by definition college educated, meaning they are currently or will in the future be among the highest income groups in the country!

krastanov 7y ago

Like you, I have hard time empathizing with people that put themselves in debt "knowingly". It is hard to not think they are just stupid. The issue is, I was lucky to have the opportunity to be educated about these risks early enough. I have hard time blaming people of not knowing something that was never alluded to when they were growing up (e.g. credit is not free money). Otherwise I agree with you, this is a ridiculous solution to an otherwise real problem.

nightski 7y ago
Maybe Bernie should fix the fact that our education system does not even include financial literacy courses instead of just mass forgiving debt. EDIT: Apparently down voters on HN are against financial education in our public schools.
- krastanov 7y ago
  The etiquette is to not discuss votes on your comments. For what is worth, I suspect people dislike the snideness and lack of effort in the comment, not the notion of financial education.

rhino369 7y ago

Especially since our federal loan programs have very generous repayment plans. 20 years paying no more than 10% of your disposable income and it gets wiped out. I paid 264k plus interest. It’s bullshit to tax me further to pay off loans for people who can afford to pay it.

jonahbenton 7y ago
This "tax" would not affect you in the slightest, unless you own an HFT firm.
- aaomidi 7y ago
  But someday they might be a millionaire!!
- rhino369 7y ago
  He is proposing taxing all stock transactions .5%. I’d pay that and .5% I move my nest egg around adds up. And his projections are pants-on-Fire stupid because he doesn’t account for the fact all high freq trading would move offshore if they taxed trades .5%. Sanders is either an idiot or a bullshitter.
  - jonahbenton 7y ago
    You may be a market timing genius and/or unicorn day trader but generally speaking nobody beats the market and nobody should be moving their own nest egg around, which usually only makes the brokerages money.
    - repolfx 7y ago
      So the transaction fees get passed on to the people who buy into the funds (except, buying into a fund is also a "financial transaction" so may also end up being taxed). Moreover this logic seems to assume HFT is useless. It's a source of liquidity. Everyone who directly or indirectly invests in the stock market ends up paying for higher liquidity - it's just a case of how easily you can see it.

taneq 7y ago

To do this fairly it would have to be a kind of retroactive scholarship for all students, where you would be refunded your tuition as well. Of course, then there are the people who chose not to study at university in the first place for financial reasons. I don't think there's a completely fair answer.

baybal2 7y ago

> This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. But it will work. It's outrageous, but it works (in getting you elected.) If you remember, there was a guy called Vladimir Lenin. He used slogans like that to the effect of "social earthquakes" I will not be surprised if 99% of people in hopeless debt trap will vote for that without a second of hesitation.

kenhwang 7y ago

I agree this is straight up pork barrel politics, not good policy, and rewards poor behavior without anything preventing the problem from happening again. A simpler, fairer proposal: give _everyone_ who attended college in the last X years $Y per year attended. At least that way the good actors aren't punished to subsidize the bad ones, and everyone is still drawn towards lower cost programs and valuable degrees.

averros 7y ago
Even simpler and fairer proposal: don't steal or vote for government thugs to steal on your behalf.
basch 7y ago
It should be more of a sliding scale. Each year further from today gets less.
- kenhwang 7y ago
  Sure, make it a chart. If you paid tuition during X year, you get $Y per month attended.
  - basch 7y ago
    Thats about as close to fair as you can get. Maybe with some kind of interest reimbursement, for people who paid loans not cash. Also minus any tax credits youve gotten, for paying interest or principal.

pytester 7y ago

>Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible "Financially responsible" has become a euphemism for "rich and assumed to be responsible". I know a bunch of people who are not particularly responsible with their money (splurging) but they are beneficiaries of a lot of unearned income (interest, dividends, rent) and I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why this unearned income shouldn't be taken away and used to fund the kind of education that improves the overall wellbeing of society. This is the point where somebody tells me that those people don't have enough money to fund this kind of thing (bullshit), or that Bernie won't target them he'll target you (bullshit) or that if you tax them they'll just run away to Panama (there was a study that demonstrated that when their taxes are jacked up they didn't even run away from New York to New Jersey).

aaomidi 7y ago
This is extremely true. Financially responsible is also just "privileged." They don't understand how different the state of primary education in the US is. Two school districts within 20 miles of each other are wildly different. 1. https://www.philasd.org/ https://www.philasd.org/ 2. https://www.lmsd.org/ https://www.lmsd.org/
cloakandswagger 7y ago
It's much easier to rob someone when you convince yourself that they didn't actually earn what they have. This us vs them reductionism is seen in the early days of any communist system (the mass killings come a bit later)
- aaomidi 7y ago
  Ah yes, communism. This isn't us vs them - this is us vs... us. Everyone should want to allow people to access education.
  - cloakandswagger 7y ago
    >I know a bunch of people who are not particularly responsible with their money (splurging) but they are beneficiaries of a lot of unearned income (interest, dividends, rent) and I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why this unearned income shouldn't be taken away and used to fund the kind of education that improves the overall wellbeing of society. This is the point where somebody tells me that those people don't have enough money to fund this kind of thing (bullshit), or that Bernie won't target them he'll target you (bullshit) or that if you tax them they'll just run away to Panama (there was a study that demonstrated that when their taxes are jacked up they didn't even run away from New York to New Jersey). Emphasis mine

axaxs 7y ago

This is essentially my problem with it. I did very well in high school, and had many many offers to attend very expensive universities, many of which offered no academic scholarships. I made a conscious decision not to take on that much debt, and had a much longer road to where I am now, and probably a lessened overall outcome. But I'm debt free. I'm too old to care now, but it's not fair to kids out there with mindsets like mine, to just start erasing student debt wholesale. In that situation, community colleges cease to exist and universities have incentive to skyrocket prices even higher.

basch 7y ago
If we disregard "its not fair to me, when i paid mine off" and "this reduces my buying power because everyone is as well off as I am" as arguments, my problem with this is that it excuses the schools for jacking up rates as loan money became available. This is a bailout, and the banks / schools are the beneficiary. No more loans that will never be paid back. Schools get every inflated dollar from the last two decades. Instead of taxing everyone, shouldnt the schools who took the money be paying in for everyone they trained who is underpaid? https://thehill.com/opinion/education/442497-colleges-need-to-have-skin-in-the-game-to-tackle-student-loan-debt https://thehill.com/opinion/education/442497-colleges-need-t...
- AareyBaba 7y ago
  We should just call this a bank bailout and that will shutdown this proposal. I prefer Andrew Yang's proposal to give every American a $1000/month divided funded by a value added tax. You could use that money to chip away at your student loans and it's fair because every citizen gets it.
  - basch 7y ago
    And rent/mortgages would instantly go up $1000/m. And then we are back to a bank/realestate bailout.

cjbprime 7y ago

> Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible enough to save and pay off their loans early Bernie wants to take tax money and work out what the best thing to spend it on is. It's disingenuous to imply it's any more taken by force than taxes already are. Significant portions of your taxes already go towards people who have, by your definitions, behaved irresponsibly. I don't know whether this is the best use of that money -- whether there's something else that would have much better effects on welfare and economics in general. I also don't have any student loan debt from my university degree, though it's because I grew up in a country that doesn't charge money for education. The system of being unable to discharge student loan debt via bankruptcy seems brazenly corrupt, though, such that demolishing the whole thing may be an appropriate response.

jquery 7y ago
>I grew up in a country that doesn't charge money for education. Your country almost certainly does charge for education, you're just shielded from the immediate cost. >The system of being unable to discharge student loan debt via bankruptcy seems brazenly corrupt, though, such that demolishing the whole thing may be an appropriate response. Alternatively, going forward we could allow the discharging of student debt in bankruptcy with the knowledge that this would prevent many useless degrees from being funded and correspondingly would result in a large decrease in higher education spending. I'm fully in favor. For far too many people college is merely an extended adolescence and creates perverse signaling issues when it comes to getting a good job. As a nation, we should be more mindful of the degrees we decide to fund and the amounts dedicated to such degrees. Your nation, which "doesn't charge money for education," is almost certainly doing this.
- omnimus 7y ago
  "many useless degrees" is very thin ice to walk on. If there are people wanting to learn something then it's not useless. Looking at it from economical standpoint only is just very narrow view. Education is not training for a job. There is value in knowledge. Even if you think only about economy it's very hard to predict what will be profitable. Dont forget that if someone is studying "useless degree" than it's enough burden to know you might not get job in that field. I think it's wonderful if anyone has a chance to have a try at higher education. Also as many countries show education doesn't have to be expensive and putting financial limits on them keeps them efficient.

narag 7y ago

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. Is there any chance this will really happen? If the answer is no, don't waste your precious keystrokes. If the answer is yes, ask for more: not only they cancel the existing debt, but they also give you your payments back. Problem solved!! :)

jonahbenton 7y ago

"...forcibly take money from everyone who was financially responsible..." I am no fan of Bernie's but this description is completely wrong. A transaction tax would have little to no impact on ordinary savers/investors. It would have zero to do with credit card debt. It would at most represent a slight redistribution from assets generally controlled by the 0.1% to the top 50%. The place where that tax would pull from in the financial system is currently mined by HFT bots. To the extent that this impacts you, you are already being skimmed by them, you just don't know it. The financial system is REALLY REALLY big. Hundreds of $T change hands DAILY.

kenneth 7y ago
Money is fungible. Saying that the expenditure is funded by a tax on Wall Street is just clever bullshit to make it look like the taxpayers aren't on the hook for this absurdly expensive amnesty. The truth is those are two entirely orthogonal issues that affect the federal budget. If not this amnesty, the tax could fund something else. If this tax isn't enough, the money for this bill will come from somewhere else.
- deleted 7y ago
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- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  If it's clever messaging and it works, it works. Some cohort in the country is going to be on the hook; it's up to democracy to pick which cohort that is (congressional representation, all that jazz). Right now, Millennials are on the hook (carrying the debt). They're also now the largest voting cohort [1], having edged out Boomers this year [1]. Do you think they're going to stay on the hook? It's unlikely (~1.6 million Boomers die each year, about 1.3 percent of the Boomer cohort); Millennials will continue to reshape state and federal government each election cycle. I imagine the cohort of voters who took on large amounts of student loan debt and successfully paid it off in a short duration of time is exceedingly small (but vocal!). Life isn't fair. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials...

oceanghost 7y ago

You're right but you're wrong. You're blaming students for an outrageous situation and saying they should have chosen simply to be poor.

rsj_hn 7y ago

It's important to understand that the government can't make loans disappear, all it can do is transfer the burden of the loans from one group to another. In this case, we have transfers from those who did not go to college or went to college and did not take out loans to those who did. A regressive transfer. Then there is the issue of creating more imbalances. We send far too many people to college. Germany, for instance, sends 1/3 of its population to college (which lasts only 3 years and is quite strict) and 50% to trade schools. We have no trade school program and tell everyone to go to college, yet we struggle teaching useful skills to people. Something is broken in our college system, costing twice as much as the OECD and yet not doing a good job of producing skilled workers. This is not a system that should be further subsidized, rather we should spend much less on our universities and divert resources to trade schools. A bloated, dysfunctional system is not deserving of a bailout. Then there is the basic issue of fairness. Colleges have huge endowments, employ excessive number of administrators in make work jobs and hold substantial real estate holdings -- these should be depleted first in any bailout of the system before we start tapping taxpayers. If a college is graduating large numbers of students who can't repay their college loans, that college should be liquidated as it is socially harmful. Liquidate the endowment, sell off the real estate and convert it to trade schools. Finally, college educated kids are pretty privileged. We should focus on those who did not go to college. On a personal note, my family did not have a lot of money. I was a decent student and had good SAT scores -- I got lots of brochures for Tulane, Brown, and other universities that I knew I couldn't afford. Instead, I lived at home and worked, and went to a community college on full scholarship. I got good grades and then lived at home and went to the local state school, also on a transfer scholarship. I worked. Then I went to an "elite" grad school, also on scholarship. I graduated with no debt. I could easily have gone to a private uni and been saddled with lots of debt, and then maybe clamoring for a bailout. But that would be irresponsible. There are plenty of low cost community colleges and state schools that offer scholarships to even half decent students. I am not looking to bailout anyone who made worse choices. I understand that people can suffer misfortune, in which case the school they went to should bail them out.

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Macross8299 7y ago

I dunno what sort of message this is supposed to send to people. "Fuck you if you were a big enough sucker to pay back your debts"?

happytoexplain 7y ago
I keep seeing this sentiment in this thread, but I'm not seeing the logic behind it explained. Normally the fact that other people have already committed their own time and money to deal with some issue doesn't mean we shouldn't address that issue going into the future. What's different in this case?
- foobarchu 7y ago
  I think its interesting to apply the sentiment to other things. Would a state funded levee system be a "fuck you" to people who lost homes in the flood that prompted them? It's being paid from their taxes, after all. Is the chicken pox vaccine a "fuck you" to people who had it when they were young before it was available? Are surgery advances a "fuck you" to people who previously got an amputation? Was the introduction of the GI Bill a "fuck you" to everyone who served in the armed forces being it? After all, veterans pay taxes.
  - kennyadam 7y ago
    No, it's all just zero-empathy privileged people who don't want to share.
    - Macross8299 7y ago
      Yeah, I'm so privileged that I took on debt to go to university for a difficult subject and had to work and make lifestyle sacrifices to pay it back rather than voting for someone to give me a free ride.
      - happytoexplain 7y ago
        Regardless of whether it would work well, the proposal is to help people who are suffering inside a horrifically broken system, not to give indiscrminate free rides to people who haven't even made the decision yet. The notion that massive tragedy is OK if the fault can be placed with the victims under the argument that they demonstrated financial incompetence is simply antithetical to civilization. Otherwise, why not ignore anything that can be placed under the umbrella of personal responsibility? High suicide rates? Who cares, it was ultimately the dead's decision. Don't look into it. The idea that people deserve this and it's not fair to those who already made it through seems like a purely emotional reaction, and an extremely reductionist one, considering the dramatic complexity of higher education's actual value and how much risk is "worth it".

jbigelow76 7y ago

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes against every value of fairness we hold. ... I have little empathy for people with student or credit card debt. You took a deal knowing the terms full well, you have no right to complain that you owe the money you already spent but never earned. What a load of horse shit. Once student loan debt couldn't be discharged through bankruptcy it fell to the perils of moral hazard. You want to pursue an English Literature degree at Harvard, by all means proceed, if that person footing the bill[2] then has skin in the game as to whether that debt can be repaid. My solution to the student loan crisis, federalize all Sallie Mae [1] loans, let the lenders take a bath like when Washington Mutual was federalized during the Recession and then let a real market start underwriting student loans. [1] https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/ https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/ [2] Edit: original was person/lender

supercanuck 7y ago

>By the numbers: Sanders plans to pay for the action by hitting Wall Street with a tax his campaign says will raise $2.2 trillion over 10 years, according Vox.

jquery 7y ago
As we learned in 2008, taking $2.2 trillion from "Wall Street" will have major effects on "Main Street" (we nearly had a total economic meltdown over Wall Street holding a "mere" $0.5T in toxic assets). Wall Street is not some wholly separate entity from the rest of the economy.
qub1t 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_... This is some relevant background reading for anyone who thinks Bernie's tax revenue numbers are realistic.
- Macross8299 7y ago
  >The volume of futures trading fell by 98% and the options trading market disappeared You have to wonder what the second-order effects of the options trading market disappearing (or being severely reduced in volume) would be. I know there are some pretty important businesses that depend on options to hedge against commodity prices. Airliners and oil come to mind.
  - ptah 7y ago
    i would say getting rid of this market makes the financial system healthier. 2008 crash could have been avoided with something like this
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Would it? It wasn't options trading that caused 2008; it was bad home loans.

echo419 7y ago

As someone with $40k in student loans remaining from my econ degree(after paying off $10k+), I'm fully in support of this. I don't know what "we" you're appealing to, but I certainly consider this "fair" in the sense that I'm more than happy to give back to my community, fellow students, and younger generations so that they don't have to struggle through the same things I did. It sounds like this position is that others be punished for/with student loans because they decided to get an education. 1. According to the article Bernie is proposing a 0.5% tax on trades, and a 1% tax on bonds. Given that ~half of all Americans invest in the stock market[0] (and given how Wall Street has acted) this doesn't seem to be a big issue in my opinion (obviously others will disagree with me). 2. I do have empathy for those who have taken on such debt, because such debt should not in aggregate be so large as to impact the economy adversely (which it has, and will continue to do via consumer spending etc...). Additionally, I know very few, if any teens who are able to understand the intricacies of debts/loans, let alone adults(I'm sure this argument will be mis-characterized). It may sound grandstanding, but I genuinely believe that we should care more about the medical, financial, and social/political well being of others in this country, and I think this is a good first step for that. 0: https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/investing/trump-stock-market-americans/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/investing/trump-stock-marke...

kenneth 7y ago
I mean, of course you support a proposal to wipe off 80% of your entire student debt. I don't think you get to call it "giving back to the community" when you're a net taker under the proposal.
- echo419 7y ago
  I'm glad you seem so willing to engage in constructive/effective arguments regarding the proposal, rather than how the proposal should be framed/discussed in terms of individuals. And I'm certainly glad you saw that my other points were reasonable and saw fit not to refute them at this point. :) However, even under this proposal I would be a contributor as I invest in the stock market, which is the entire point of taxes/a community(it's literally giving back to the community/the cost of living in a society). So no, I would contribute my fair share, and arguably get less out(compared to others) since I've already paid $10k+, and I have no problem with that, at all. Like I said, I'm happy to help others given the position that I'm in, which is better than some and worse than others.

noobermin 7y ago

The logic of this "not being fair" sounds more to me like "if I couldn't have it, no one else can!" I for one would be happy even if they just made college tuition free without canceling the debt. I'd be happy if younger people could get an education without having to worry about things I had to. I want to see others succeed, I don't want to hold them back because they have to suffer like I did.

tshaddox 7y ago
I don’t think it’s quite as simple as you say. This isn’t something like “my childhood was tough, therefore I want everyone’s childhood to be tough.” Just because someone has paid off their college debts does not mean that the effects of that debt have ended. Obviously the effects of that opportunity cost still exist. That money could have been spent on other things, like a mortgage. So the idea of forgiving all current student loan debt without any consideration of people who are still living with the effects of their previous student loan debt is pretty crude, and I think there’s a strong argument for calling it blatantly unfair.
- foobarchu 7y ago
  This can go either way, though. It's just as easy to argue that cancelling student debt is a highly effective form of economic stimulation. There are droves of people who are actively putting off large purchases like houses and cars, and delaying having children, almost entirely because of student loan debt. Removing a huge ongoing monetary obligation from a massive section of people who want to spend is a lot more likely to help the economy than more tax cuts for the already wealthy who are probably going to hoard that wealth away.
  - Wellshit 7y ago
    What's to prevent people from going to 'study' and amass huge amounts of student debt and then say "But it was cancelled for them" ?
  - dantheman 7y ago
    Why not just give everyone 100k, people could buy houses cars, etc.. it'd really help those who couldn't even dream of going to college, even with loans. It'd drive up housing and everything else.

acconrad 7y ago

Let's unpack a few statements here: > financially responsible enough to save and pay off their loans early What if you are financially responsible and you don't have enough to save and pay off early? > like me worked their asses off through college to be able to graduate without debt I did too. How much debt did you have? As a college student, I could pay off $30k in debt with a few CS internships. No number of Google summer internships could pay off $200k in debt, though. Especially if you tack on more debt for medical school. Do you think it's feasible that there are people who bust their ass and still can't graduate without debt? > irresponsible enough to dig themselves into a massive debt hole. This is the real part I question. Who dug themselves into the hole? The parents? The kids? What did you know at 18? If you can barely drive, vote, or drink, how could you possibly predict the future that your financial choices might cause ruin to you and millions of others of your generation? Can you, at the age of 18, as the world is telling you to go to the best college you possibly can, truly grasp the gravity of the decision you're about to make? > I have little empathy for people with student or credit card debt. Then you have little empathy. At 18, you didn't know the terms "full well." Most kids were duped. Most parents were fooled. The news said "if you get a college education, you're going to make more money." It still says that. So they make a connection and they don't question it. Even if you have to go into debt, you still make more money. The problem is, does making more money actually net you more money. Not a lot of people really thought that through. So that said: is that worth punishing them? Is punishment the right thing? Why can't we look at this from compassion and caring, rather than punishment and justice? A generation was tricked into a bad ride. My generation. I graduated (with debt paid off in a year) when the economy tanked, in 2009. It couldn't have gotten worse for me. And even though I'm part of the cohort that should most want to have everyone suffer the way I did and pay off debt, I don't. Cause I don't want suffering. For anyone. Even if they get a better deal than me. That's how progress goes: we give the younger ones a better chance than we did. Education shouldn't be slavery. You shouldn't want this for others. This is a way out, and it likely won't come to fruition this way, but it is a way towards compassion.

malvosenior 7y ago
Plenty of people at 18 have the personal responsibility and financial awareness to not get a useless degree in exchange for a massive amount of debt. > That's how progress goes: we give the younger ones a better chance than we did. Culture matters. Instilling a sense of personal and financial responsibility in the next generation is the best thing we can do to help them. Giving the most irresponsible people of our generation a massive handout is the opposite of that. Think about it, if an entire generation of people who came before you were absolved of tens (or hundreds!) of thousands of dollars of bad debt, why on earth would you think it was a good idea to pay off your debt and instead not just wait around for the same handout?

mmusc 7y ago

Some argue that this debt that has to be repaid 'no matter what' is part of what is wrong in today's societies and economies. Here read this book Debt: The First 5,000 Years https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt

what_is_this 7y ago

This would be paid for by taxes on investments, and the result of this would be increased consumer spending. Which leads to good results for investors

pimmen 7y ago

I have some empathy for them because having a college degree is becoming less optional if you want to partake in today's economy, especially if you want to move up relative to your poorer parents who probably don't have the support and/or network for you to find your way to a good career. Sure, it's not required to have a financially stable background and college degree to make it but saying that forgoing them is a reliable path is not honest. So, in that light, I would say that I don't think all debts should be cancelled but I do think we should remind ourselves that during the New Deal there were plenty of people who said that it would be unfair for the government to fix jobs and social security for lazy bums. We don't have to go to either extreme, cancelling all debts or showing no sympathy what so ever.

mc32 7y ago

I think there are a couple of things that as a society we’ve failed to do to different extents; 1. Promote vocations and vocational schools (some people are better off here). It could be the traditional HVAC, welder, nurse or new types like front end development, aspects of IT. 2. Price loans according to prospects. Getting a loan for literature or writing should cost more than a loan for biology, informatics or medicine. Obviously predicting future demand is imperfect, but we also know what majors will likely have low demand into the future.

Simulacra 7y ago

But isn't this the definition of socialism: Taking from one and giving to another?

Balgair 7y ago

I disagree so very much! Default rates on student loans are about %40. Home mortgages are about 4% and auto loans are about 6%, for comparison. I've lived this too. My family was able to send me and my siblings to college on our own dimes. We worked our butts off to help the family pay for our schooling. I spent many hours after school in the family business, and many summers too. I had less of a teenage/childhood due to this. I contributed my income after graduation so my siblings could get through without debt too. I sacrificed my time and money for the betterment of my family. My family did the same for me. Hopefully, I have proven that I have sacrificed enough to be considered a real voice in this conversation. I would LOVE to cancel all these debts. I've seen my friends and other family members struggle with these $800/mo debts for nearly a decade now. It does nothing for nobody but some rich jerk. I'm tired of seeing the people that I love struggle and be punished for trying to help the world. Yes, fine, I'm better off because of my sacrifice and my family's. And yes, fine, wiping out that debt would 'invalidate' that sacrifice, whatever that means. But I'd much rather sit on my porch my friends and drink a beer, rather than sit alone on my porch and drink 2 beers while my friends drive for Uber on the weekends. Enough is enough. This pain is unnecessary and thus is cruel.