An Immoral and Bad Public Policy

A majority of Americans do not have college degrees. Of those who do, few will actually qualify for Joe Biden’s plan to deal with student debt. The plan is referred to as a ‘student loan forgiveness plan,’ but the actual policy is to take the private debts of individuals and make the American taxpayer cover them.

The upfront cost of this debt transfer from private citizens to the taxpayer will exceed all the inflationary reductions made in the supposed Inflation Reduction Act. It will not only make inflation worse but will inflate college prices by providing a disincentive for colleges to rein in their tuition increases.

It is profoundly immoral and will exacerbate future student debt problems and create deep moral hazards as colleges will have an incentive to get students into further debt for further bailouts.

The progressive left claims this plan will not cost taxpayers money. But it actually will.

The federal government, through various institutions, paid students’ college bills up front with taxpayers’ money. The students then obligated themselves to pay back that money to the government’s institutions with interest to reimburse the taxpayers. Now, by $10,000.00, the taxpayers will be left without repayment, meaning the taxpayers will have shouldered the debt.

Beyond that, white students tend to have lower student loans by virtue of having more financially able families to help cover college costs. By forgiving $10,000.00, Joe Biden will actually be expanding income inequality among races by putting white kids at a significant advantage over black kids who will be left with far higher remaining debt balances.

Additionally, people who worked hard to meet their private debt obligations will be disincentivized from that hard work. Why put in the time and effort when the government bails out the irresponsible? We will, in fact, be bailing out the irresponsible and sending the IRS to audit the responsible.

Finally, beyond the non-college degreed, there is the class of citizen who already paid off their debts. They scrimped and saved. They cut back. They met their obligations. The level of resentment in this country is going to rise as those who paid off their debts are forced to cover the costs who those who did not.

It is profoundly immoral to transfer the privately incurred debts of some onto the backs of all taxpayers, most of whom put in the work to pay off their own debts. The only rationale for this public policy is to reward rich, white, college-educated Americans for moving into the Democratic Party.

This policy will escalate the trend of non-white working class voters moving to the GOP as they’ll now be shouldering the debts of the white kids who got gender study degrees and then were shocked they could not get a job. This policy will amplify racial income inequality in the country. This policy will drive up inflation and college tuition. This policy is wrong.