Cancel student loan debt? Good idea?
Or just buying votes with OPM?
Is what this country needs really More Free Shit?

Longshot 2020 presidential candidate has a radical plan to solve the student loan crisis

The $1.5 trillion student loan debt crisis has been building over decades, and one presidential hopeful has a simple and radical solution: to cancel all student debt.

“Americans are not going to have the same opportunity to achieve the American dream,” Wayne Messam, mayor of Florida’s Miramar City (population:140,000) and a longshot 2020 candidate, told Yahoo Finance. He noted that in addition to rising healthcare costs, “this crippling student loan debt that 44 million Americans are dealing with [is] slowing down our economy.”

Messam’s plan would involve all loans that are either U.S. Treasury-backed or private and taken out for higher education at any point of time would be forgiven, giving borrowers a clean slate.

“The U.S. Department of Education owns about 95 percent of America’s student loan debt,” the plan states, “making the mechanics of complete debt cancellation for the majority of the loans relatively straightforward.”



Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam speaks at a rally at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens, Florida. The Democrat Messam announced his candidacy for president at the rally. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The massive debt pile is “a balloon is really getting ready to burst,” Messam told Yahoo Finance. “And we need to do something about that.”

Messam announced his candidacy on March 28, joining Pete Buttigieg as the second mayor in the 2020 race.
‘Don’t think it’s fair’

The former Florida State University football player said that as the father of three college students, he knew the financial pain that comes with higher education.

“I don’t think it’s fair that the student and the parent has to bear all of this risk when it’s benefiting the entire economy,” said Messam.



The explosion of student loan debt from 2006 to 2018. (Source: St. Louis Fed)

The student loan debt crisis has become a national issue recently with another presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), heavily criticizing the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau for failing to keep student lenders in check.

“Student loans, lending discrimination, credit reporting companies, debt collectors… It seems pretty clear to me that you stopped enforcing the laws designed to protect consumers,” Warren told CFPB’s head Kathy Kraninger in a hearing last month.

Banking giant J.P. Morgan chief Jamie Dimon also chimed in on the topic earlier his week, criticizing the industry as being “irrational” amid “soaring college costs.”

“The impact of student debt is now affecting mortgage credit and household formation,” said Dimon. “Recent research shows that the burdens of student debt are now starting to affect the economy.”

Millennials saddled with debt are putting off key milestones like starting a family and buying homes as a result, a study from Bankrate.com found.



Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., left, talks with Christa Lautner, right, of Urbandale about student loans and predatory lending after an organizing event at Curate event space in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Matthew Putney)

Student loans will be paid for by the ‘repealing of the Trump tax cuts’

Messam believes that his plan could be could be enacted in two steps.

“The $1.5 trillion will be paid for by the repealing of the Trump tax cuts that were given to corporations and the richest of Americans,” Messam said. President Donald Trump passed the cuts in 2017, hoping to pump fresh money into the economy. Corporations were the biggest beneficiaries.

“That was estimated to be about $2 trillion worth of tax cuts,” Messam continued. “That’s the first part of the answer of where that money will come from.”

The second part, he said, would be for the Department of Education to use that “revenue stream … to pay off the debt … as well as going to the private lenders to pay off any outstanding loan debt that would be owned by private lenders.”

That would essentially — in his opinion — wipe borrowers’ balances and give them a clean slate.

Messam believes that wiping all of the debt would “not only will it balance the scales in terms of having parents and students bear all of this costs … it would be an economic stimulus in the first year alone.”

‘A big pill to swallow’

Experts aren’t sold on the idea.

“I’m sure that the proposal or the idea has an appeal for people who have been burdened by student loan debt,” Bankrate.com Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick told Yahoo Finance. “But when you talk about cancelling student debt, it’s obviously a big pill to swallow.”

Hamrick said that cancelling debt en masse would be “trading a less than optimal situation for one of comparable value or perhaps even worse,” adding that any efforts to repeal Trump’s tax cuts would be near impossible.

“First of all, you’re asking Congress to do a complete 180 of what’s already passed,” said Hamrick. “Not only is it politically unsustainable or unlikely, but also it would just be viewed as not workable.”

On top of that, “there is a notable variable that this plan fails to pinpoint,” Climb Credit CEO Angela Ceresnie told Yahoo Finance, which is “holding higher [education] institutions accountable for student outcomes.”

She added: “Canceling the current debt doesn’t stop future debt from accumulating. … The reality is that there are institutions hiking up tuition and maximizing the amount of government aid that they are receiving without delivering adequate career outcomes to their students. A one-time cancellation of current debt isn’t going to stop these institutions from burying the next generation in debt.”

And at the end of the day, “it might make for a good talking point,” Hamrick said, but “this is the wrong kind of medicine for the problem...

“The ill is $1.5 trillion in a student in a system that is somewhat broken system. It’s a rather simplistic idea that doesn’t really address long-term challenge.”

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/...essam-124020955.html

Sure, let’s just cancel all that debt. I’m not OK with it, but if Congress will legislate that they will not under any circumstances accept any more loans to be backed by taxpayers, I’ll get over it.

I am waiting for the reparations for WASP's platform.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
The former Florida State University football player said that as the father of three college students, he knew the financial pain that comes with higher education.

This from a guy who's education didn't cost him a dime. Right.

quote:

“I don’t think it’s fair that the student and the parent has to bear all of this risk when it’s benefiting the entire economy,” said Messam.

Um...huh?

These people really are batshit crazy. [/QUOTE]

Let's pay for everyone's home mortgage and car loans while we're at it. The more free stuff, the more liberal votes.

I spent a lot of time paying off student loans. Fuck this, don't take out loans you can't afford.

I was waiting for something like this. Once enough people get into enough debt, they'll realize the power of their numbers.

Not in favor of this at all.

However, something HAS to be done about the cost of education as a whole. In the 60’s/70’s/80’s, you could work your way through most 4 year institutions and graduate with little to no debt, and even if you didn’t the debt load was quite easily paid through a combination of good employment possibilities and inflation.

By this point next year, my spouse and I will have paid $400k in student loans completely off, in 5 years post masters completion. In that time, we have not saved anything for retirement, for a future house, or really spent any money other than food and necessary transportation.

With a child, what this means is that we will not contribute anything to the economy in terms of spending until we are 50 or so, (mid-30’s now), which is fine for us but not so great for the economy as a whole.

And I completely echo what Arc said... fuck ‘em

Forgive student loans and watch the cost of college skyrocket.

As a Taxpayer who didn't take a Student Loan No- You took on the debt gambling it would improve you position in life. You pay for that gamble.

Forgive my mortgage, too.

My loans for graduate school are nearly paid off because I made sure to go to a school I could afford with the degree/field I chose.

Just a hint: my degree was not in a liberal arts field.

I paid mine off on time, they can too.

quote:

Not in favor of this at all.

However, something HAS to be done about the cost of education as a whole. In the 60’s/70’s/80’s, you could work your way through most 4 year institutions and graduate with little to no debt, and even if you didn’t the debt load was quite easily paid through a combination of good employment possibilities and inflation.

Right you are!

We have made it far too easy to borrow money for college. What has been the effect of this? (unintended consequence?) It has driven up the cost of education, at a rate far higher than inflation or the growth of the overall economy. The ONLY other area of the economy which has experienced this level of inflation, (price increases) is heath care, which is ALSO heavily subsidized by the taxpayer.
Of course we have had inflation in these two areas!

The solution is less government involvement in both health care and education. It's the opposite of what the Dems. want!

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
I spent a lot of time paying off student loans. Fuck this, don't take out loans you can't afford.

Good advice. My son paid his loans off really fast by living lean and mean (for a while at home). He knew what was coming and planned accordingly.

quote:

“I don’t think it’s fair that the student and the parent has to bear all of this risk when it’s benefiting the entire economy,”

Just how does the entire economy benefit from an economic degree from Boston University?

Free, Free, Free, Free, Free. It's all Free. I want my free stuff. I want it now.

Well shit!

Something HAS already been done. It sure was great when Obamacare started and the first thing that was necessary for better insurance coverage was for the government to take over the student loan program. Looks like the stupidity of the American voter is still a huge political advantage...

I didn't get a student loan or go to school. Why in the hell should I have to pay for everyone who wants a degree in Gender Studies? Nobody held a knife to their throat and told them to get a degree that is useless and then buy a bunch of shit they couldn't afford.

It it my fault they suck at math?

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
I spent a lot of time paying off student loans. Fuck this, don't take out loans you can't afford.

Nicely phrased and an excellent synthesis of a moral as well as philosophic position.

When the proponents of this larceny present photos under sworn testimony of borrowers with guns to their heads to sign for loans I'll begin, just begin, to listen. When they show me that there were no jobs available at all to work part time, not 'internships' and 'fellowships' but jobs including unpleasant ones (wouldn't that be awful), that they were 4F and were physically barred from military service that would provide GI bill ed benefits. I'll listen closer.

When the apologists organize a process to reimburse graduates that were dumb enough to either delay ed until they could afford it, work through it and pay as they went, or dumbest of all moves, pay off their student loans I'll listen more but still not much.

But I still have a hard time thinking that I will accept a treasury raid to pay for indolence, entitlement and stupidity on the part of these people.

In the movie 'Jurassic Park' there is another philosophical line early on where the old-guy owner says to his chubby tech-whiz, "I'm sorry for your financial difficulties but they aren't my problem." I think it applies here. Figure it the fuck out, children.

Listen to this idiot take on the bankers over the student loan crisis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYo2SR8r1kU

quote:

don't take out loans you can't afford

- I couldn't agree more.

My daughter will graduate this May with a Masters degree. I was able to help her out with 1/3 of her tuition and books. Other (living) expenses were on her. After 5 years (including a semester abroad) she'll have about 13K in student loans which she should be able to pay off pretty quickly. She did, however, work her ass off (part time cleaning job during the school year and full time in the summers. She also had a paying grad student position her last year) and lived within her means.


One of her classmates, however, is over 100K in the hole...