Student Loan Blowback

 Let me state my position about student loans: they make borrowers into serfs and this country does not need serfs. I have no problem with President Biden forgiving student loan as he has. It may be too little to forgive, but it is enough to finally bring the problem into focus.

And the focus, so far, has been the GOP squawking about it being unfair.  

Rep. Greg Pence criticizes student loan plan after having nearly $80K PPP loan forgiven was the headline from the Indianapolis Star.  Pence was quoted as:

“Only someone like Joe Biden who has been living off taxpayer dollars for fifty years can confuse the difference between PPP loans and Student Loan handouts," Pence said. "In the height of an unprecedented pandemic where businesses across the country were forced to close, PPP loans were distributed to keep people employed since they had no choice but to shutter completely. "

No, the two do share the quality of improving one's economic standing. What really caught my attention was this:

...Unlike student loans, the PPP loans were intended to be forgivable, if certain criteria was met, from the start.

So, Greg Pence voted for legislation that would benefit him.  

Huffpost published Kimberly Guilfoyle Rips ‘Lazy’ Grads In Rant Against Student Loan Cancelation.

Between those two articles, it seems the Republicans view those getting loan forgiveness as lazy and undeserving. The same does not seem to apply to those whose businesses were kept afloat by taxpayer dollars.

I do not know if I fully agree with The Not-So-Hidden Reason For Republicans’ Student Loan Anger except for the following:

1. Biden's program seems tilted to the poor and Blacks are a great proportion of America's poor;
2. I don't know of any Republican proposal for remedying this problem; and
3. Republicans are readying lawsuits to block Biden’s student debt plan

People need an education - academic or vocational - to make their way in this world. We need to wonder about politicians who make difficult the obtaining of that education at reasonable cost.

 

The following I found on Huffpost under the headline Conservatives Plot Legal Challenge To Joe Biden’s Student Debt Relief and asks a question that needs answered:

Simpson-Vos, 50, works at a nonprofit and has about $9,000 remaining in debt from his undergraduate and graduate school loans as he’s also working to save for his own daughter’s college education. He said that he considers himself fortunate and is concerned about the effect taking this relief away would have on so many other people with higher debt burdens.

“I worked hard, did not expect to have my debt forgiven,” Simpson-Vos said. “Made difficult choices along the way. But when the word came about the forgiveness, I thought to myself, this is extraordinary. What a great opportunity for me to end this cycle and really start both my daughter’s life out without debt, but also to be able to finally get out from underneath it myself. ... It just makes me want to know why the Republican Party is so hell-bent against something that would do so much good for so many people.”

 

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