Sanders and Warren: Going After The Deadbeat Vote
Accountability? Responsibility? Honor?
Not popular topics in this time of swashbuckling political Robin Hoods who are gallivanting around the country vowing to wipe out the college debt of young people in return for their votes in 2020.
Yippee! Borrow money and never pay it back. What could be better? And what a terrific lesson in financial responsibility for people just starting out in life.
Someone needs to remind mewling millennials that no one made them take out loans to go to college. Just as no one made them major in fine arts, biblical or gender studies or social work - among the LEAST lucrative career fields - instead of engineering, nursing or web design, some of the most lucrative.
It was also their choice to pass up affordable community colleges in favor of more pricey four-year institutions with country club workout facilities, lazy rivers and swanky dining halls. It was also their decision to attend their “dream” schools where they didn’t qualify for any scholarships rather than the less competitive colleges that were throwing money at them.
Instead of wiping out college debt, perhaps we should require that high school seniors do a cost/benefit analysis of their preferred field of study before they borrow money or decide to major in the poetry of William Blake. And while we’re at it, perhaps we could guide some smart kids into the trades. We’ll always need electricians, plumbers and carpenters, jobs that don’t require a college education and often lead to excellent salaries.
This silly competition between Democratic hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to wipe out student loan balances by taxing the rest of us is not going to happen. If Sanders and Warren were honest, they’d admit it. Instead, they’re making promises they can’t keep to get the votes of college grads who made promises they don’t want to keep.
In other words, they’re fighting for the deadbeat vote.
Shoot, even liberal Slate magazine called Bernie Sanders’ plan to cancel all student debt at a cost of $1.6 trillion “a mess.”
“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.”
Last month, billionaire Morehouse College graduate Robert Smith told the Class of 2019 that he was personally paying off their college loans. It was a lovely, generous gesture.
If Bernie Sanders wants to sell two of his three homes to satisfy the loans of some Vermont college graduates, that, too would be terrific.
Same goes for Elizabeth Warren. According to CNN, Warren's net worth was estimated to be close to $10 million in 2015. If she wants to donate a few million to help struggling young people - Native Americans would be a nice touch - pay off their debts and encourage other smoked salmon socialists to do the same, that would be quite gracious.
But universal college debt forgiveness? Underwritten by those of us who paid our college loans? No thanks.
What about forgiveness for folks who bought a house in an area they can’t afford and are now struggling with the mortgage? Or the person who had to have a BMW and is now suffocating under the car payments? How about shopaholics smothered by credit card debts?
Don’t they all deserve relief?
No, they don’t.
It’s quite simple. You sign loan papers, you take the dough, you pay the money back.
With interest.
