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Thomas H. Ptacek

100% of all of this debt should be cancelled, right now. I only have a problem with cancelling the debt from Nathan J. Robinson’s 9 Yale degrees.

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@electricalWSOP

...who had to pay to learn how to be truck drivers, cosmetologists, barbers, nurses, dental assistants, welders, boom operators, HVAC... anything requiring training. All of that is educational debt, all of it is obscene and getting it off the backs of working people is good.

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Making it free going forward is going to accomplish a lot more than a one time cancellation of past debt. Cancelling that debt is also very regressive compared to simply handing out money to everyone equally instead of giving far more money to people who got a better education.

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Thomas H. Ptacek

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In general, I agree. But to dispose of an important sub-argument: for-profit and trade-school debt should all get zeroed out.

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Why? Just redistribute the same amount of money to everyone as stimulus checks. Primarily helps people who are poor instead of people who got an expensive education and don't need help. Cancelling student debt is just putting a reverse means check on the money distribution.

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If you have $100k of debt because you're a recent graduate with a degree from a fancy university, I don't see why you need government help. The people who need the money most are the ones who didn't get the opportunity to go into massive student debt.

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Simply giving everyone 1k stimulus checks for 1 year would be a more popular policy anyway. I really don't get making it into a controversial thing primarily helping middle class and upper middle class people while ignoring poor people who actually need the most help.

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From my perspective at least, the whole student debt cancellation push is the US is a self-destructive policy proposal from the Democrats when they could just propose giving people stimulus checks and actually do it as a more progressive policy that's not at all controversial.

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Thomas H. Ptacek

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If you means-tested the stimulus check, sure, go ahead, that works too.

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Why would it need to be means tested? Just give everyone the same amount of money. Cancelling student debt is a similar concept except the people benefiting most are the ones who were in a position to go to university and get an expensive education. It's the reverse of that.

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Thomas H. Ptacek

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Don’t give wealth people money, which will have little marginal utility; any dollar you give me is better spent in Youngstown.

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Means testing makes it harder for poor people to get it by needing to prove they qualify. Simply give more money to everyone equally if the goal is redistributing more wealth to people that are less well enough. Means testing it just isn't needed and makes it needlessly complex.

10:07 PM · Aug 24, 2022Twitter Web App

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It will inherently put upwards pressure on prices and lower tier wages. Poor people would still have far more purchasing power. It will take wealth away from wealthy people because they're the ones with savings to devalue and the amount of money is insignificant to them.

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Thomas H. Ptacek

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Yeah you lose me here. That’s ok! But I don’t buy the idea that program design is so hard that we have to give Nathan J. Robinson money. The NJR test is useful in all sorts of policy discussions, I recommend it!

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There aren't enough extremely wealthy people for it to matter. It's an insignificant portion of the overall money if it's divided equally. Making everyone part of it is important. Makes it immensely popular and very hard to criticize, and it's not any less progressive.

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