Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Another overreach

The Democrats still see themselves as the party of the working class and middle class families. Whatever remained of that dissipating reputation should now be sent to the ash heap

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his long-awaited plan to deliver on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt cancellation for millions of Americans — and up to $10,000 more for those with the greatest financial need — along with new measures to lower the burden of repayment for their remaining federal student debt.

Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or families earning less than $250,000, would be eligible for the $10,000 loan forgiveness, Biden announced in a tweet. For recipients of Pell Grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, the federal government would cancel up to an additional $10,000 in federal loan debt.

Biden is also extending a pause on federal student loan payments for what he called the "final time" through the end of 2022.


Charles C. W. Cooke at National Review didn't mince words as to whom this adversely affects and why it was done.  


It seems so arbitrary. Why does Biden not want to do the same thing for loans on trucks owned by plumbers? Why not for mortgages — which, given how heavily it subsidizes them, the federal government clearly thinks are worthwhile? Why not for credit cards or auto payments or mom-and-pop credit lines? The answer, I’m afraid to say, is disgustingly classist: Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are better than everyone else. Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are of a finer cut. Because Joe Biden and his party prefer college students to you, and they think that those students ought to be rewarded for that by being handed enormous gobs of your money.

Electricians, store managers, deli workers, landscapers, waitresses, mechanics, entrepreneurs? Screw ’em. Sure, college graduates make more money than non-graduates, and their unemployment rate is lower, too. But non-graduates don’t have access to the president, so they don’t matter. They’re tradesmen, the riff-raff, the great unwashed. They’re background noise, dirty-handed types, second-classers. They don’t deserve $10,000 in debt reduction. What would they even do with it? Go hunting? Give it to their church? Their role is to subsidize the superior people, and the superior people go to college.

Why did Joe Biden do all this? That’s why. Why was this what Joe Biden chose to break his oath to achieve? That’s why. When it came down to it, good ol’ Scranton Joe sent cash from the sort of people he cynically pretends to care about to the sort of people he actually cares about: the privileged, accredited, self-dealing clerisy that his ever-dwindling political party now calls its base.


This move has been signaled ever since Biden took office 17 months ago but he kept kicking the proverbial can down the road, much to the chagrin of "progressives." I'm sure deep down he didn't want to do this knowing how, at minimum, it's a political loser, to say nothing of legally dubious. Heck, House Speaker Marie Antoinette Nancy Pelosi even tried to throw Biden a lifeline earlier this year. 





As far as college grads (and, in some cases, their families) who fulfilled their obligations by paying off their loans or not taking them out in the first place? "Too bad, so sad" is essentially what you'll get from the likes of Fauxcahontas Sen. Elizabeth Warren.


 



The Dems have been feeling an air of confidence lately having passed the Climate Change bill Inflation "Reduction" Act as well as having their 2022 electoral prospects not looking nearly as bleak as they did earlier this year. But to stick the majority of Americans with extra taxes and debt to appease those who either have upper crust jobs or who wasted their loans on worthless college degrees won't keep voters in their good graces. 


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