The White House is reportedly preparing to “forgive” up to $10,000 of student loan debt. The ranges of income that will qualify go from $150,000 to $300,000 — depending on whether the person is a single or joint filer. The program will also cover graduate-level debt, which means a lot of doctors and lawyers will get free money off the backs of blue-collar workers.
Why is this happening? It’s not because most people with student debt are staring at financial ruin. In fact, that group represents the country’s highest-earning potential. Rather, because the Democrat base is now over-educated, white liberals, they are looking to buy votes heading into November’s election.
This should be a slam dunk issue for Republicans, but nothing is ever guaranteed with the party of failure theater. But if any GOP politicians are looking for pointers, they need look no further than Gov. Ron DeSantis’ reply, which hits all the right notes.
.@GovRonDeSantis full response to a question about student loan debt today: https://t.co/k6MsUKP6b2 pic.twitter.com/3Hvq4OFoPG
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 29, 2022
Clearly, DeSantis is right about how grotesque it is to make waiters and construction workers foot the bill for high-income professionals, who are going to make millions of dollars over the course of their lifetimes. Most student loan debt is graduate-level debt because that’s where colleges gouge people the most, fueled by a steady stream of easy money from the government over the last several decades. The industries with the greatest price increases over the last half-century are healthcare and education for a reason. The government always makes things worse.
What I really like about DeSantis’ reaction, though, is that he goes further than some other Republicans are willing to go, which has been a staple of his leadership. The right move here is not to tell those who fell prey to predatory student loans to pound sand. Yes, there’s ultimately a level of personal responsibility involved, but we can’t ignore the role the universities have played in this.
Those who benefited from these loans should have a part in footing the bill. That means universities that raked in gobs of cash to pay diversity officers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year should be holding the bag for those who can’t afford to pay their loans. The idea that we are going to make truck drivers pay the student loans of somebody with an MBA, while universities sit on hundreds of billions of dollars in tax-free endowments is insane. Any government program to relieve student debt should be completely dependent on taxing those endowments.
That’s where Republicans need to go when arguing against what the Democrats are doing. Counter their ridiculous vote-buying scheme by making changes to the student loan process, while also putting the universities on the hook for their predatory behavior. That will go much further than a temporary payoff that does nothing to solve the problem.