Recent polling indicates that the Dems are losing the youth vote – something that seemed impossible until the current knucklehead moved into the White House. The panic is setting in and the Dems have decided it’s time to buy some votes. Student loan forgiveness is back in the news. Everybody from Chuck Schumer to AOC and the squad are demanding Joe Biden declare some form of student loan forgiveness, to buy up to 40 million votes – with taxpayers picking up the tab.
There’s an ongoing debate concerning the legality of the president merely canceling a contract between two entities – which is exactly what a loan agreement is. I don’t know if it’s legal or not (though it shouldn’t be). That’s a topic for another day.
I’d rather focus on the morality of doing such a thing. Is it moral to take an obligation, that one person has agreed to and benefitted from, and transfer it to another person who had no involvement in the original transaction? At its most basic level, that’s what’s being proposed.
A transfer of obligation is also a transfer of wealth. We’ll get to that shortly. So, what is the magnitude of this transfer of wealth? There are numerous schemes being proposed. Everything from forgiving $10,000 of a borrower’s debt, to forgiving all student debt (which is what the lunatic wing in charge of the Democrat party is pushing for).
Total debt forgiveness would be a $1.6 trillion giveaway. That’s a “16” with eleven zeros behind it. It’s a number so large, it’s difficult for a human mind to grasp. It’s 2.5 times the amount of money spent on welfare over the past 20 years! If we lined up 100-dollar bills, end to end, $1.6 trillion would reach the moon and back 3 times.
But forgiveness of that debt doesn’t mean that it magically goes away. Free stuff from the government is never free. That student debt was funded via US Treasury notes. Somebody will have to continue paying the interest on those notes – and that somebody is the American taxpayers. Forgiving student debt merely transfers the loan payments from the person who benefitted, to the federal government – which means us. A larger portion of our federal taxes will be diverted away from things like defense and infrastructure, to pay for someone else’s loan.
Total student debt forgiveness would mean that every man, woman, and child in America would assume an additional $5,000 in debt (in addition to their share of the current $31 trillion in national debt). That means that an average family of 4 would need to pay the interest on $20,000 of additional debt – through their taxes. Given the current 4% interest rate of student loans, that family will need to be taxed an additional $202 each month, to cover the interest on someone else’s student loan. Given our current inflationary nightmare, what could an average family do with an additional $202 per month?
And it’s not even a form of welfare providing assistance to those in need. According to Fortune magazine, only 7 percent of student debt is held by people below the poverty line. The average person with a student loan has a family (themselves and their spouse) income of over $76,000 per year. An analysis by USA Today found that 40 percent of student debt is held by people with advanced degrees – like doctors and lawyers.
Here’s a little fact that should make every American’s blood boil: Congresswoman Rashida Talib (Commie, MI) is demanding that Joe Biden provide student loan forgiveness. She is paid $174,000 per year in taxpayer-funded salary, and she wants someone else to pay for her $70,000 of student loan debt. A congresswoman pulling down six figures from the taxpayers would like those same taxpayers to also cover her five figures of debt – which she acquired to get an education to run for Congress and get on the public payroll. It seems there is nobody with a greater sense of entitlement than a member of the squad.
Is any of this moral? Student debt forgiveness is the epitome of the “haves” benefitting on the backs of the “have nots” – something the Dems rail against, but somehow always facilitate. Is it moral for a truck driver or a waitress to assume the loan payments, for a doctor who took out the loan, so that he’ll have a bit more left over every month for his Lexus payment? That trucker or waitress will gain no benefit from assuming the additional burden. I’m not anticipating doctors or lawyers offering a discount in exchange for their loans being paid off. That average American worker had no say in the original contract agreement and will get no thanks for assuming the burden.
Is it moral to place one person, involuntarily, in another’s service? At its core, that is what any form of debt forgiveness does. There is nothing moral about any Federal give-away.
By John Green
John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He currently writes at the American Free News Network and The Blue State Conservative. He can be followed on Facebook or reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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This article was first published by the American Free News Network.
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