From: Benjamin Boyer
Columbus
I write to set the Aug. 7 column by Mark Franke straight — and hopefully assuage anyone frightened by his boogeyman story — regarding the student loan forgiveness plan set forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
At no point is the government going to reach into anyone’s pocket to snatch money – or at least not any more than usual. Sanders’ plan is to erase the debt owed to the federal government. No money changes hands or moves anywhere. A big number in a computer would be set to zero and life would go on.
Private loans are, of course, a different matter. Demanding everyone that is owed money to forgive the debt would be gross overreach of the worst sort, which is why Sanders does not suggest it. What would happen is those loans would be bought (and then also forgiven) by the federal government, and paid for by a new tax on Wall Street transactions.
This is the part rich people don’t like. The "middle class" the columnist is defending (or at least trying to frighten) probably doesn’t spend all day shoving piles of money back-and-forth into the stock market, and therefore wouldn’t be largely impacted. The people that will be impacted make sure at every turn to scream and shout about the big horrible government sticking their fingers into your pockets (their pockets) and taking away your hard-earned money (their zero-effort shuffled money). And they say that money will go to a bunch of freeloading college hippies (you, your kids, your neighbor’s kids).
Nowhere in sight is a mention of how this will ease the burden on an increasingly squeezed working class that’s making garbage money for garbage jobs they got educated for that turned out to be duds, or shipped overseas, or replaced by a computer.
Nowhere did I read how this will invigorate the economy (the real economy, not the rich guys shuffling money economy) by removing what amounts to a second mortgage payment from more than 40 million Americans’ monthly budget. There’s no question of how "fair" it is that millions of people are facing possible eviction for having the poor judgement to take a job deemed "unessential," but any corporation with friends in Washington gets billions of dollars (your dollars, by the way). The bog standard-complaints are on behalf of the rich. They complain about fairness, and commonly toss about the slur "socialist" any time the government could be forced, against its will, to actually spend money helping the American people.
Perhaps the columnist should ask himself if it’s fair to soak the poor in fear, uncertainty and doubt.
