2873

It was! I was springboarding from your post, not rebutting it!

2874

I suppose some people are upset about reinforcing gender roles or something? Meanwhile, every father of a daughter in America nods their head in agreement with Joe.

2875

Yes, this is the real problem.

Freakonomics had a recent podcast on the subject. The Purdue president who’s rolled back tuition to 2012 levels and frozen it there is to be applauded. We need to fix the root problem, as the Freakonomics episode says there is a lot of evidence that the increased availability of student loans helped drive up the cost of colleges

The lifetime earnings gap between college graduates and high school continues to widen, so I’m not overly sympathetic to use taxpayers fund to pay off the "A high school student who graduated from a good university with a 100K in debt or a grad student who wracked up $200K. The real tragedy was the “C” student who was pushed into college, but dropped out after a couple of years and has $50k of loans and nothing to show for it.

2876

I agree with this. I also agree with the point that others have mentioned – using the tax dollars of people who never went to college to reimburse those who did feels unfair, and it’s probably political suicide.

The root cause of this is the cost of education. As with healthcare, the country would be best served if we attacked that, rather than relieve the symptoms for a selected group.

2877

we who are about to die salute you

2878

Warren’s plan is to use her wealth tax on assets over $50 million to pay for it. So not a tax on people who didn’t go to college.

2879

That, or the creepy old man talking about the hot 13-year-old girl.

2880

Tax dollars are fungible, though. If she’s using that money for loan forgiveness, it is not going to tuition reductions/ grants, healthcare, etc.

2881

Can you clearly articulate what about your life would be worse if current student loans were provided with assistance?

This is the main augment I can see against it… That there are others who need that money more.

But I’m curious if there are other arguments.

2882

Boots strapping and job creators? That kind of crap?

2883

Same thing that would be worse about my life if everyone who had a mortgage just had it paid off by the government. Relative financial security, buying power, etc.

I mean housing has become ridiculously unaffordable too. I think a lot of homeowners would be annoyed if the government just paid off the mortgages of everyone who still had one.

2884

So you are afraid that you will be worse off, if those poorer people are made less poor?

2885

Why don’t you just send me money? Are you afraid you’ll be worse off? You’ll still have all of the possessions you have now.

Of course. It’s not like the money comes from nowhere.

It’s pretty straightforward. If I spend $100,000 on something, and you get it for free, I’m worse off than you. In particular when I’ve spent $100,000 on something, and then I have to pay for yours too.

If you don’t believe that, why don’t you just buy me a duplicate of everything you buy for yourself. You shouldn’t have a problem with that. You still have what you bought for yourself, so you’re no worse off.

You literally didn’t even answer my question. Why not pay off your neighbor’s mortgage? Are you afraid that you will be worse off, if they are made less poor?

Would you have a problem if everyone under the age of 40 were just given free food that you paid for? Housing? Is there a reason we should limit this to college? Why would any of this bother you - because they would be less poor?

Ultimately, I worked very hard to pay off my student loans. Not wanting to pay off everyone else’s unless I get my money back has nothing to do with “it was hard for me, so it should be hard for everyone else.” It has a lot more to do with my not enjoying what I do for a living, but doing it anyway to pay back my debts, and having to continue to work to earn money for retirement that I would already have if I hadn’t paid off those loans. I could have, for example, put all of the money I used to pay my loans off into my home. Instead, I have a mortgage, because I focused on paying off the student loans. I’d really rather not have to work longer to pay off someone else’s debts too.

Why should I be put in a worse financial position (40s, with a mortgage that would have been paid but for my student loans)? Why should someone who is 25 be able to start plowing all of his earnings into his home, while I 20 years later pay his loans so he can do that, while I also still pay my own mortgage?

It’s frankly inequitable, and to suggest it is simply a matter of “It’s not harming you,” is ridiculous.

2886

So, what @Timex said.

It’s not fair if people aren’t poor and worse off, like you were when they are young.

Anyway, this makes me think of Matthew 20:1 through 16, about the laborers. Although, that might have more to do with the Kingdom of Heaven then actual working and what is fair.

2887

So no, that’s completely wrong. There’s no point in responding more to the old, “So I’ll ignore what you said, and create a fake summary that meets my needs,” game that you play, however.

2888

Ah, you don’t know that parable. It’s an interesting one.

2889

No, I just don’t need to read beyond your initial disingenuous statement. No reason to read people who are dishonest in how they respond.

2890

I lean toward making college free going forward rather than paying things off in the past, for all the many market distorting reasons, not the moralizing ones, but if student loans get wiped out it’s hardly the worst injustice ever committed in the world. Occasional bouts of debt relief has literally been SOP for most governments for most of Western history.

2891

Of course you don’t. You don’t have to respond to any of it.

Although, I did read your statement. I mean, I almost didn’t. It was unnecessarily long. It seemed to be about how unfair it was that you worked hard and that your value in society would go down if others didn’t have to work hard to get to the same position that you did through hard work (totally ignoring how the loans that you took out were much smaller than the loans of people younger than you have currently, and how college is less affordable then ever).

Your piece was lacking much in the way of supporting evidence of this though. I mean, couldn’t use that same argument to not give away food. I mean, you had to buy your own dinner. If other people got it for free, they could put that money into buying a house! Think of the injustice!

I feel like your goal is to make sure people don’t get ahead ever. Like, make the lives of poor people better, as long their lives don’t get better than mine, because that would be unfair.

Anyway, Matthew 20. It’s good, because it’s not easy to decipher what it means.

2892

Matthew 20 seems pretty straightforward to me. /shrug