Elizabeth Warren’s plan for student loan debt forgiveness sounds great in theory. But it neglects one very important group of people: those who already paid back their student loans.
One father reminded Warren of this during a face-to-face conversation at a presidential campaign event in Iowa this week: “I just wanted to ask one question,” he said, “My daughter is getting out of school. I’ve saved all my money. She doesn’t have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?”
“Of course not,” Warren responded.
“So, you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?” he asked.
“I’ve saved all my money. [My daughter] doesn’t have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?”@eWarren: “Of course not.”
“So you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed.” pic.twitter.com/eqK7o4Cl9Q
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 23, 2020
A large percentage of people, including this father, worked to pay back their student loan debt without government assistance. Now, they’re being told by Warren and several other Democratic presidential candidates that had they waited just a few more years, they could have saved thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of dollars.
“My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations,” the father explained to Warren. “I saved my money. He made more than I did. But I worked a double shift, worked extra — my daughter worked since she was 10 … We did the right thing, and we get screwed.”
Warren’s plan is a slap in the face to hard-working, responsible adults such as this man. And in application, student loan debt forgiveness is nothing more than a Band-Aid, a temporary fix that will not repair the underlying problem: the high demand for, and the coinciding high cost of, higher education.
We can’t just “hit the reset button,” as Bernie Sanders has said, and expect this problem to be solved seamlessly. Warren’s plan (and Sanders’s, too) would benefit only one group: people with debt on the day she signs an executive order. Those with future loans would get nothing. And those who had already paid back their loans would get nothing. Is it any wonder this father was so upset?
