Ease their pain. And yes, go the distance.
Jordan Weissmann continues to be obtuse about the issue of canceling student debt. Jordan wrote about this when he feigned ignorance as to what Jill Stein was talking about when comparing canceling student debt to quantitative easing for banks. I was one of those reminding Jordan then--not that he was listening--quantitative easing was how the banks dumped many student loans onto the US government. It was part of the Fed's $4 trillion giveaway to bankers and banks.
Anyway, Jordan is back and here are the two paragraphs he thinks his point becomes so compelling:
"By itself, student loan forgiveness is sort of an odd priority for the left. It would do an enormous amount of good for many financially burdened young adults, but a disproportionate share of the relief would go to upper-middle-class and wealthy families. Currently, about one-third of the debt is held by households in the top quarter of the nation’s income distribution."
"One reason for this is that people who go to college just generally tend to make more money than people who don’t. Another is that a lot of student debt is held by people with advanced degrees in fields like law and medicine who borrow enormously for school, but tend to make a nice living. Last time I ran the numbers, about 39 percent of all new student loan dollars were being taken out for graduate school. Granted, a chunk of that cash is being borrowed by future teachers and social workers. But a ton of it is funding those business and medical degrees. If Republicans stood up and said they were going to pass a $1.6 trillion tax cut exclusively for people who had already attended college or grad school, and that the biggest benefits were going to people who trained to be surgeons, democratic socialist types would probably think it was insane. And yet, that’s pretty much what universal student debt relief is—at least if you look at it in isolation."
First, Jordan had to update his article by noting Bernie's plan has a provision for public grad school programs to have regulatory oversight to keep down costs. I think that is especially needed with law schools. However, let's get to Jordan's numbers, which I will assume are correct: First, he says one third of the debt goes to those households in the top quarter of income earners, which is anyone earning $80,000 or more. Not exactly buying that Mercedes at that level, are you? Not exactly without any fear of economic instability, are you? Anyway, Jordan's stat means, of course, two-thirds are those earning less. Even those in the top quarter are those who are part of the 80% of income earners living paycheck by paycheck. Second, 39% are being taken out for grad school these days is an interesting statistic. However, Jordan gives away much of his point by next saying its for teachers and social workers, people who do not make all that much money compared to doctors, lawyers and hedge fund managers with MBAs.
Jordan suffers from Mayor Pete Syndrome. Jordan worries about some money going to better off people--though Mayor Pete actually makes it sound like its going to Donald Trump's kids, which is cynically misleading. Both Jordan and Mayor Pete would have made these exact same arguments in 1935 against Social Security. Why should Thomas Lamont of the Morgan House be entitled to a Social Security check. He doesn't need a public pension. Oh, and canceling student debt will likely be a shot of adrenalin for the US economy.
