I am appalled by the Biden administration’s blatant ploy to buy votes with taxpayer money. But I am not surprised.
FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief for Borrowers Who Need It Most
A couple of things to note:
a) The loan forgiveness program will provide “relief” for households making 3.7 times the median household income (a/o 2020) in the United States. Yeah; sounds like it helps poor people to me…
b) If you’ve been a successful, responsible adult who chose a valuable degree and paid back your student loans – tough. And thanks for all the fish.
But if you didn’t complete your degree or pay towards your student debt – debt that benefited no one but you – Jackpot! you WIN the student loan lottery (and you get to keep the car you bought instead of paying your student loans).
c) The loan relief will do nothing to lower the cost of college; it will simply shift its cost to others – including those who have not/will not attend college. This cost transfer will be direct via increased taxes, or indirectly via increase costs as tax increases are passed down to consumers. Colleges have no incentive to lower prices as long as the government is footing the bill as written. Similar to electric vehicle prices when sales are supported by government rebates, I expect college cost to rise, not fall.
But by far the most insidious element of the Biden administration’s debt forgiveness program is that students cannot apply for relief now; they instead must wait for the government to develop the program, ensuring that the relief comes after the election. From the White House fact sheet (a/o 8/29/22 5:52pm PDT):
The application will be available no later than when the pause on federal student loan repayments terminates at the end of the year.
This action by the Biden administration – announcing the relief before the process is available – confirms that this is a buy-the-vote effort meant to ensure that the 41 million students now lined up for “free” money will vote Democrat in November.
Sadly, this is not a new tactic by the Biden administration. Biden used a similar tactic in 2021 to campaign for Georgia senators Ossoff and Warnock, stating:
“If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door … The power is literally in your hands.”
It’s becoming increasingly popular ploy, as other Democrat politicians use the same method to buy local elections – such as Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf:
Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf calls for $2,000 payments to help families ‘survive inflation’
His plan? Send $2,000 to families making less than $80,000/year (still 18% above the 2020 U.S. median income) in order to help them fight inflation(?!?). Wolf, however, is an even slyer fox than Biden; he knows that with a Republican-controlled state legislature he won’t actually have to send the money. And he’ll still be able to blame the Republicans for not putting such a bill on his desk. Promising money he won’t actually have to pay – brilliant!
We are on a slippery slope, with Democrats driving our population towards government dependence while destroying the economy through inflationary giveaways. I hope you all have the courage to vote them out of office this November – student loans or not.