Laura Ingraham sparked intense outrage on the left (what's new) with her recent remarks criticizing President Biden's reported plans to push forward with his student loan debt "forgiveness" scheme.
Before we get to that, let's establish the obvious: this isn't debt forgiveness, it's a debt transfer. Since money can't be evaporated or erased, the existing debt – that is, money that has already been spent – will be paid by someone. What the president is promising to do is to tell the people who took the loans that they don't have to fulfill their obligation to pay, while telling taxpayers they get to.
Any legitimate, moral debate over the appropriateness of this plan will discuss honestly what is happening. To the degree that the rhetoric continues to espouse "forgiveness" is a sign the entire conversation is rife with duplicity and deceit.
Now, you can still make the argument that it is better for the $2 trillion invoice to be paid by taxpayers than young professionals who haven't gotten a good financial return on their $250,000 gender studies degree. You can make the case that young 17- and 18-year-olds are being targeted by adults who convince them to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of financial liability, promising them it's required if they want to be a "success," and therefore it's unfair to require them to shoulder what they were deviously tricked into accepting.
All that is fair to argue, even if I don't agree. But pretending a president can just wipe it off the books with the stroke of a pen is staggeringly dishonest.
For her part, Laura Ingraham is not in favor of the plan, and took to both her Fox program and to Twitter to explain why.
Progressives were hasty in their attempt to seize the moral high ground in attacking Ingraham's position. Huffington Post Senior Editor Andy Campbell took his turn:
Others felt similarly:
I certainly don't disagree with the argument either are making – it's hard to imagine Ingraham's mom wanting to see others have to work so long and so hard to pay off college loan debt. But there's an enormous difference between saying, "I want a solution so that others don't have to do this," and, "I think government shackling taxpayers for a student loan bailout is the solution."
Consider that if Joe Biden confiscates taxpayer money for this purpose, it will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem long-term. It will provide a gift to current debtors, but the underlying issue that led to the debt in the first place will remain and guarantee we will be here in this same position in a short period of time.
If President Biden and his fellow progressives truly care about the insane amounts of money required to obtain a college degree these days, they wouldn't be seeking legislation to deal with the past (loans that were already taken). They would be finding ways to dramatically lower the costs of such degrees moving forward.
The source of this debt dilemma isn't difficult to decipher. Colleges and universities are over-administrated, are dramatically overpricing their product, and the ease of obtaining federal loans allows them to get away with it. If those loans were to disappear, college enrollment would plummet and the bubble would pop – institutions of higher learning would have to bring their costs back within the dictates of the market.
But for some odd reason, this obvious solution remains totally off the radar and completely off the progressive table for discussion. It's unfathomable why that is.
I don't know if Joe Gabriel is onto something or not, but what I do know is that Joe Biden would be wise to consider it. If nothing else, the president needs to explain the glaring favoritism that is being shown to the education industry.
For instance, a far higher percentage of Americans are suffering under automobile loan debt than student loan debt. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out that "forgiving" the car payments of all Americans would go a lot further in stimulating the economy and helping the less fortunate than allowing a small percentage of white-collar workers push their financial struggles onto the backs of blue-collar ones. The same goes for mortgage payments as well.
So why the laser focus on student loans? Is it absurd to conclude that the administration's cozy relationship with left wing academics could be playing a part in an effort that will allow them to perpetuate their drastically overpriced scam? Is it crazy to say that the president and his team see extraordinary benefit in keeping the progressive sausage factories we call universities churning out a product that directly benefits the Democrat party?
If that's not the case then what is behind all this? Everyone agrees it would be nice if everything came at little cost and without strings attached. But that isn't reality in any other environment, so why the sudden demand to pretend it can be for exorbitant college bills?
