Posted on 02/19/2020 3:52:23 PM PST by Libloather
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg launched his campaign for president by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements to boost his poll numbers. Yesterday, he released a policy proposal to address the cost of higher education.
Unsurprisingly, Bloomberg would not cancel student debt or make all public colleges free (as Bernie Sanders proposes). Instead, he would place all student debtors in an income-driven repayment plan so that payments are taken directly from borrowers’ paychecks.
This plan is a neoliberal technocrat’s wet dream. It would treat student debtors as isolated individuals who must make payments tailored to their specific situations and according to means-tested formulas.
Bloomberg’s education payment plan would also eliminate the possibility of student debt strikes. This is an outcome that I am particularly concerned about.
In 2015 I helped organize the first student debt strike in U.S. history as part of the Debt Collective, an organization for debtors that I co-founded. That strike helped win more than $1 billion in debt relief for people who had attended predatory for-profit colleges.
(Excerpt) Read more at inthesetimes.com ...
Hold on there, Pardner! Let’s not be too hasty.
This would be a moderate position, if true. Big gamble for the little guy.
I’m amazed that he managed to come up with a policy position on student debt that probably alienates everyone at the same time in how insane it is.
How would it alienate the poor taxpayer schlubs who are otherwise gonna be on the hook for it?
Oh, sorry—I just read more. It has that offensive means testing crap in it.
The author could be a Bernie Bra Bot. No idea.
The time to go on strike against debt is before you take out the loan.
[Oh, sorry—I just read more. It has that offensive means testing crap in it.]
Fifteen percent ? max out of your paycheck or pay the previously agreed amounts.
It may be in the graduate’s interest to sign up.
I think it is a good idea. Kind of like a garnishment for child subsidies.
It would be like the English system, but I assume only a new repayment option.
....and there goes the educated-citizen vote.
Bloomers is a banker yes? If so, he just wants to make sure he gets paid, but since the other dems are saying they’ll erase that debt, I am not sure what demographic Bloomers is targeting here.
He is likely targeting the middle class taxpayer who has no interest in paying for some snotnose kid’s Princeton degree in transgender studies. He is setting it up for an independent run.
As long as he doesn’t peel off any votes from the right, I do not care.
I could go along with that.
Bloomberg is going to burst into flames when people realise what his proposals are.
Take it out of the endowments of the universities who exploited dumb 18-year olds for their student loans.
Then let’s do that with all debt, no discharge of any debt in bankruptcy court.
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