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Sanders proposes canceling entire $1.6T in U.S. student loan debt
- go_ruby 7y agoDoes cancelling actually mean paying it off on behalf of the debtors?
- Fjolsvith 7y agoMaybe the creditors get a big fat tax deduction...
- cyrksoft 7y agoHe plans to tax Wall Street, whatever that means.
- PhantomGremlin 7y agoDoes cancelling actually mean paying it off on behalf of the debtors? A large percentage of student debt is so-called "direct loans". This is money loaned by the US Department of Education. This money comes from the Federal government, not from a bank or other private financial institution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_States#Federal_loans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_St... For those loans, "cancelling" presumably means adjusting some ledger entries.
- xfitm3 7y agoThis is just another bad idea I can't get behind.
- ChrisLomont 7y agoHere [1] is what happened when Sweden tried a similar tax. Multiple other countries have tried it Sanders style and obtained similar market destruction. He really should check what his plans have done historically. They’ve all been tried many times, and not made long term policy, for empirical reasons he routinely ignores. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transactio...
- cyrksoft 7y agoBecause he doesn't care about facts or economics. It's pure populism to attract young people. This greatly damage the US economy.
- lsllc 7y agoIn the old days a politician just needed a single wealthy donor (say a George Soros or one of the Kock brothers), now with crowd sourced fundraising, you just need 1M people to give you $20 via your website or app. So yes, all you need do now is to appeal to the masses! [much to the chagrin of the wealthy -- see Schultz' attempted presidential run]. However, representing the masses vs a few special interests is definitely a step toward greater democracy.
- ChrisLomont 7y ago>However, representing the masses vs a few special interests is definitely a step toward greater democracy. Unless the masses don't understand how/why some systems work and want to tear them down. Many systems in modern life are complex enough that most don't understand them, and such systems, if simply ran by popular vote, would make life worse, not better, for the masses. This is how we get rent controls (which ultimately hurt those it is supposed to help), it's how we get anti-vaxxers, climate change denialists, those who would tear down modern banking and replace it with a gold standard (despite ample evidence this is a terrible idea), we'd block all sorts of medical advances, we'd block human rights, and on and on. The masses is not a very good deciding factor in running a modern world. They should feel represented, and have some say, but certainly they need protected from really bad decisions. I'm not sure the best way to do it, but it's pretty clear the masses would run things terribly in many cases. Sometimes having representatives try to get good advice from experts and follow it is a much better solution. Populists historically have appealed to the masses like this, and they have a pretty bad track record. An old quote has some truth to it: “The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
- pteredactyl 7y agoSo if I paid off my loans do I get a check? Or does the dollar keep getting devalued because of policies that sound good?
- ExDeveloper 7y agoThe dollar is already worthless. It because fancy Monopoly money after we scrapped the gold standard.
- ethagknight 7y agoWhat about us fuckers who saved up and paid for their tuition up front?? Now I get to pay for someone else’s tuition too?
- ExDeveloper 7y agoI paid off my loans over a decade ago. I'd rather see a war on student loans than a war against Iran. It would be a better use of tax money and a massive economic stimulus.
- ethagknight 7y agoIt’s not a binary option unfortunately
- dusted 7y agoBe happy about your situation and go about your biz. Then again, I live in a country where education is paid for by the state, along with money for living while studying.
- hallihax 7y agoLevy a tax on the wealthiest to repay the loans of anybody who had to take one out over the last 50 years.
- whateveracct 7y agoGet over it I guess?
- jmpman 7y agoCan I take out a large student loan for living expenses and tuition right now, pocketing everything I don’t spend on tuition? I’m confident that this is ultimately going to come out of my pocket somehow, so might as well gamble on my own enrichment.
- Bubbadoo 7y agoOf course he could have started with some real-world solutions, such as restoring the tax-deductibility of student loan interest lost in Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He could have gone a little further, proposing aggressive tax credits for those who are paying their loans back or perhaps government programs, where, in exchange for working in an 'at-risk' area, the government makes your loan payment. No instead, Bernie promises something he'll most likely never be able to deliver. This is almost as bad as the current guy in the White House, who screwed all of the student loan borrowers with his tax 'act.'
- notacoward 7y agoThose are great suggestions. Bernie loves to make big proposals, but turning proposals into results is a skill he seems to lack. He has been in the senate a long time and IIRC only sponsored two bills that became law - one of them something symbolic like renaming a post office. Some first-term senators already have longer lists of accomplishments. We need more realistic proposals to improve the situation going forward, not his mere primary-vote-buying.
- mruts 7y agoThis kind of populist pandering makes me upset. What about people who didn’t go to college? Or people who killed themselves to pay off their student loans? This is nothing more than wealth transfer to a specific demographic (young, educated) to buy off voters. This isn’t how a democracy should function.
- notacoward 7y ago> What about people who didn’t go to college? Or people who killed themselves to pay off their student loans? I think you're misunderstanding the goal here. It's not to create equal outcomes. It's to stop the ongoing harm to students and to society from these abusive practices. Personally I think it would be better if these debts were capped at some non-zero number instead of being erased entirely, with the difference directed toward some of the other groups you mention, but at least this starts the conversation. Negotiation 101: start with an offer that's more favorable to you than where you expect to end up. > This isn’t how a democracy should function. This is exactly how a democracy should function - with proposals, then discussion, then votes. What about the back-room deals that have inflated college costs and created special regulatory exemptions for student loans? Anyone who complains about "populist pandering" without at least acknowledging the anti-populist pandering that led to this is being a bit disingenuous.
- woah 7y agoIt’s not “back room deals” that have made tuition prices balloon, it’s the government loans themselves.
- notacoward 7y agoIt's both. The availability of both grants and loans has been a huge factor, to be sure, but so have the direct subsidies to schools, and the special rules that make such loans more appealing to lenders, and all the "little ways" that regulation drives up either demand or cost for a college education. But it doesn't even matter, really. Whether they were made in the front room or the back room, many of the deals contributing to the debt crisis were made to benefit a few at the expense of the public. Decrying one kind of pandering while denying another never leads to good policy.
- WomanCanCode 7y agoI think the problem is the high cost of education. There should be an alternative way of getting the education you need without being seriously in debt.
- mruts 7y agoI mean, there are. Community college is super cheap. After two years transfer to a state school. Work a part time job. I guarantee you that if you do all of these things, you won’t have any debt.
- EricE 7y agoThere already are: https://discoverpraxis.com https://discoverpraxis.com http://www.mikeroweworks.com http://www.mikeroweworks.com There are others. This myth that you are worthless if you don't worship at the alter of "higher education" is a false crisis.
- NoPityNoRemorse 7y agoDon't fool yourselves. He is proposing this because most of his supporters are leftist morons that go to college, pay absurd > 100 000 $ tuitons to get a garbage class diploma about "gender studies" or stupid shit that has no market value, and they are also vastly inflating their expected revenue once they get a job, if any. So they spent a lot of money on bullshit, can't find a job, and those they find are very low under their expectations, and panic starts when they realize they are going to spent most of their lives paying that debt back, when more intelligent (hum.. conservative) students will have paid their tuition costs in 10 to 15 years, then start to pay for housing. Those leftist pricks need to be taught a very hard and expensive lesson.
- EricE 7y agoYeah, because throwing tons of "cheap" loans with no accountability has worked so well to this point. /s I think the best proposal I have seen is instead of the US Taxpayer being left to hold the bag, schools should have to guarantee the loans for students they accept. Force them to have some skin in the game. We might get some better discretion about who gets "easy" money and schools might be more incentivized to keep costs reasonable was well.