Democratic Primaries
Showing Original Post only (View all)The reverse class resentment on student debt/free college is disturbing. [View all]
It started with the Joe the Plumber guy attacking Warren at that meeting, but it's strange to see even Dems be opposed to debt forgiveness because of the whole "free stuff" attack I usually see from the GOP. People who say, well I struggled and finally paid off my debt, why should someone else get it paid by the government. That's tantamount to a person who spent ten years on the street protesting a new program to house the homeless.
People say student debt forgiveness is regressive, which is mostly bullshit. People with student debt have on average higher incomes, true. But they also have lower wealth on average, not like it's rich people. More important, in either Bernie or Warren's plan, it's funded by taxing rich Americans, and so when you look at the overall redistribution then it's hugely progressive. That's what people do when they analyze things like Social Security, why the double standard on debt?
But beyond that, if you're a person without debt, or a person who paid off your debt, then you don't get hurt at all by other people getting their debt paid off. Unless you're extremely wealthy. Whether it's wealth tax, financial transaction tax, or high tax rates at incomes over $1M or whatever, the very wealthy are paying. If you oppose this, let's be clear: you are opposed to taking money from extremely rich people to pay for debt relief for people who are generally middle class.
If you make $1M a year, you have a huge house. You have a big vacation home. And another vacation home. You have a luxury car, and another luxury car. You have people cleaning your multiple homes for you. When you go on vacation, you travel first class and stay in five star hotels. Your kids can go to any fancy private school they want. And that's just what "low-level" super-rich people are like. You get into people earning $10M a year, and beyond that, it's even more.
And guess what. If you raise taxes on that person, their life is still going to be like that. I'm not saying rich people are all happy, they're not. Some are in bad marriages, or have drug problems, or depression, or whatever. They are human. But an incremental tax raise isn't going change their material lives much if at all.
So when we talk about who is hurt by debt relief, it's not people with no debt. It's very rich people who will still be very rich, just a little less very rich. I don't think being "resentful" of the rich or anyone else is a good look. I don't want to tax rich people to punish them, I want to tax them more because the money would make huge difference to the lives of other people.
But, if there's any "resentment" anywhere in this equation, it makes absolutely no sense that the resentment should go towards the person in a two-bedroom home driving a six-year-old car that suddenly doesn't have the burden of student debt anymore. That's what the GOP wants, the middle/working class attacking itself while the top 1% run away with all the money.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided