The Middle Class Will Pay Bigly For All The Dems’ ‘Free Stuff’

Issues & Insights ^ | 6/25/2019 | The Editorial Board

[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.

[GailA]

All those going into professions that are scarce in rural areas should be able to get half their college cost written off if they SERVE in those Rural communities for 5 yrs.

Bring back Apprenticeships or Internships too. More trade schools. Our grandson turns 18 in Oct and he’s looking into trade schools already. We’ve a 2 yr JR College the State will cover as long as it is IN state. Teaches electronics, med tech, auto, HVAC. etc. He’s worked since he’s been old enough to do so. Pays his own phone and car ins. Car is 25 yrs old, still runs. It was mine, then his dad’s, now his.

[bgill]

I figure I’m paying 50% of income to taxes. Property tax, utility and services taxes, general sales taxes, gas tax and vehicle licenses and tags are taxes. Add in hidden extras that our health and auto insurance charges us because others don’t have it and we’re over 50%.

[bgill]

We did the same. Schmucks R Us. I’m guessing Bernie won’t be reimbursing us for our paid in full out of our own pocket college expenses.

If we’d invested that money, we wouldn’t be living in a dump, driving old vehicles, down to one pair of jeans and limiting food to $5/day and having enough to get the surgeries we need.

[ridesthemiles]

let the institutions holding the debts sue colleges and universities for some portion of their losses.”””

Obama moved the school loan debt from the local bank that knew your family to the Federal Government. He created a whole new bureaucracy to ‘handle ‘ those loans. They are beyond inept. Friend has her loan payment deducted automatically from her bank account. Since Obamaloans took over, she has had to go into bank with evidence at least 2 times a year & get proof of every payment being made timely & then get that info into the head of the local Obamaloan representative. It is a giant hassle for self employed person.

Other reports here on FR indicate that the money from those loans is being used to pay current Federal Pensions.

IF that is so, apparently, no one has informed Bernie of this. I don’t think Bernie even balances his own checkbook. He isn’t smart enough.

The constant drumbeat that you will never be successful unless you go to college isn’t true, and it isn’t helping this problem.

[ridesthemiles]

The Dems cannot stand that Trump gave out all those tax cuts. They are trying to find any & all ways possible to keep draining the taxpayer’s pocketbooks.

This isn’t going to end well.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Bernie says "Wall Street" will pay for it.

You are going to hate this, but that is going to resonate with the vast majority of people in this country.

What Bernie actually said was that the American middle class bailed-out Wall Street in 2008, and it's time for them to return the favor. He is not factually wrong, and mostly you'll find heads nodding in agreement.

That is the REAL damage inflicted by the 2008 bailouts. It surrendered the moral high ground against telling anybody else they can't have one.