Posted on 06/25/2019 3:03:45 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders upped the ante on free stuff the legion of Democratic presidential candidates are promising voters. In what he called a “revolutionary proposal,” Sanders says that if elected he would forgive “all student debt” — that’s $1.6 trillion worth — and end “the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”
It would be hard to devise a plan that would shower more benefits on the wealthy than this one.
Just 12% of college debt is owed by those in the bottom quarter of income earners, according to the Urban Institute. “In other words, education debt is disproportionately concentrated among the well off,” the report notes.
Sanders’ plan would relieve doctors, MBAs, computer scientists of their student debt. These are people who are or soon will be making six-figure salaries. Keep in mind, too, that students who borrow money for college are investing in their own futures, since a college degree is a ticket to higher incomes.
Even the left-leaning Slate.com had to admit that “from a pure fairness perspective, this would be a pretty questionable use of federal tax dollars.”
But the same could be said of the panoply of free stuff today’s Democrats are promising voters — a list that includes free child care, free preschool, free college, free health care, free “universal basic income.”
The price tag of any one of these proposals is gargantuan. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s own debt-forgiveness-free-college plan would run $1.25 trillion over a decade. Her free child care plan another $70 billion a year. Sen. Kamala Harris is pushing a housing tax credit for families making up to $125,000 that will cost $760 billion over a decade. Medicare for all would run more than $32 trillion.
(Excerpt) Read more at issuesinsights.com ...
Paraphrasing former Senator Dirkson (sp?), “a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
Since Monopoly has stopped using paper money, the loonies in the Communist Party can pay for their boondoggles with Monopoly money.
Rather, the middle class will cease to exist
“Rather, the middle class will cease to exist”
That’s the plan. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class pays for it.
But Trump is mean according to a significant portion of middle class women.
They’d vote their husband out of a job if it meant making them feel better.
Socialists have always hated the Kulaks.
When my oldest was eight, my wife and I paid off our mortgage early. It was a heavy lift, but we did it.
From that time on, we put the “mortgage” payment into 529 Savings, to pay for college. Month after month, year after year, we kept on paying a mortgage, because we knew that is what it would take to have the money available when the kids got ready to go to college.
Time passes, college rolled around, and the money was there. The kids will graduate without crushing debt. We were on the right side of the interest rate, all the way.
In other words, I’m a schmuck.
I should have just spent the money. I should be driving the Mercedes, and I should own an airplane. I should have been eating the richest food and drinking the finest wine. I was an idiot to save for my children’s education, because that is a bill I would not have to pay.
I did the right thing. I scrimped and saved. I am a schmuck.
That’s the plan. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class becomes dependent.
Democrat majorities forever!
I’m married to one.
I happened to select a major that the government thinks is so critical that my tuition plus a stipend were covered during graduate school. So I did not graduate owing $100k, but also I do not earn as much as a medical doctor.
While my major may be critical, that is not true of many majors. Going into deep debt to major in “Studies” is not wise, since employability after graduation is almost nil.
Students have a responsibility to research job opportunities prior to selecting a major; colleges an universities have a duty to make that information available. It is not the role of government to shift the cost of majoring in useless subjects onto the backs of taxpayers.
This proposal, along with being fiscally stupid, lets the universities off the hook for their crazy spending practices!
It is an absurdity. But the students signed the loan and then used the product.
I blame greedy college administrators and the supporting system for fostering the lie that college education automatically improves the ability to earn more money.
And then jacking up fees at higher rates than inflation.
You have integrity.
How on earth can old demoRATs not rebel at this? Are they self destructive? Addicts? Lushes?
They pretend to pay us we pretend to work
The schools are the institution most clearly captured by the Left. This plan rewards all the loyal apparatchiks.
They’re likely ignorant of that.
Just like they were ignorant of Barry’s raid on Medicare to fund Obamacare.
The student loan crisis could be fixed by simply requiring the colleges/universities cosign the loans.
So Commie Sanders wants people who didn’t go to college to pay for their bosses who did.
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