• ‘Just because you suffered doesn’t mean others should!’

This is a very common applause-winning argument for student debt forgiveness.

This is a really bad strawman and an awful analogy. It “works” in certain circles because part of the Left’s belief system is that the other side simply comprises bad people who want to cause suffering.

But the analogy from left-wing journalist Aura Bogado is telling. She equates her own chemo and cancer to paying off a student loan. That is, she reduces loan payments to suffering. But what about that education you got with someone else’s money? Her reduction totally ignores the idea of paying back what you owe. Nobody would argue that Bogado deserved cancer.

Besides, this argument has no limiting principle. Paying taxes is a form of suffering just as much as, if not more than, paying back student loans. And the benefit to you, if it exists, is far more indirect. Should I be made to suffer paying taxes just because you were? Well, the answer is yes, and Democrats seem really hot on the idea of collecting every single penny they can from small businesses especially. That’s why they just passed a bill to hire tens of thousands of additional tax collectors.

And it gets worse. Paying for dinner is “suffering” under this logic. Serving time for committing a crime is “suffering.” Nobody who makes the “repaying debt is needless suffering” argument has thought it through very well.

• ‘It won’t increase inflation!’

Of course it will. Come on — handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for zero productivity increases the amount of money in circulation without increasing the availability of goods and services. This will add significantly to inflation, and everyone knows it.

Biden is pretending it won’t add to inflation by playing a math game. He’s saying that extending the repayment moratorium only until January is counter-inflationary. He is saying that theoretically, he could release student debt holders from paying their bills forever, and since he isn’t doing that, he’s actually being austere or something. It’s silly and dishonest.

• ‘This is targeted relief for people in need.’

This is completely false. Biden said that this policy is well targeted to give “breathing room” to struggling families on the edge. And I’m sure that some student debt holders are struggling or precarious, but that is not the case on average.

College graduates ages 25 to 34 have an unemployment rate of 2.8%. Their peers who finished high school but never went to college have a 4.6% unemployment rate. Wages, of course, are much higher for college graduates. The likelihood of their being married is much higher among college graduates.

So, this is a shockingly poorly targeted handout, economically speaking. It forces the poor to bail out the rich.

Politically, however, it’s much better targeted.

Somehow, I suspect we won’t hear Biden admit, “If you voted for me, you deserve some cash.”