> When you pay someone's debts, you assume some participation into the choices they've made
So let's consider the choice to go to college.
When I was growing up, I was told over and over again that if I got an Associates Degree that I would be practically guaranteed to higher wages. I was told that if I got a Bachelor's Degree, I would see higher wages still, and even higher for a Master's, PHD, etc.
Everyone I know has been taught this from an early age. We were taught that if we work hard and better ourselves that we will see a real monetary result. We were taught that that is the American dream. Millions of people believed that message.
That message ended up being a lie. Millions of Americans are now living in debt and can't declare bankruptcy on their student loans.
Don't these people deserve a solution? What was their fault? Working hard to better themselves and society?
> Think to the unintended consequences of what you thought were just good intentions. If your level of logic is "what could be so wrong about helping people get out of hardship", then maybe you shouldn't be in the business of administering / making economic policy...
What are your "good intentions"? Preserving the very unrelenting system of debt that got us here?
If your level of logic is "what might be immoral about helping people get out of hardship", then you are clearly not motivated to help people get out of hardship. Your motivation is instead to apply a strict moral rule over those who are in need.
> Are we only going to do this for current students? Are we going to do this for every student to come? What happens when a person knows that whatever debt they take out will be forgiven?
That's a good question. How long is it going to take to remove this structure of promised benefit leading to inescapable debt? That is how long we ought to remove that burden. That also gives us a clear motivation to overhaul our clearly broken higher education system.
Is your fear that "a person will know that whatever debt they take out will be forgiven", or is it "a debtor will know whatever debt they impose will be forgiven"? We need only replace the word "forgiven" with "recovered", and we see that this is already the system we have in place. People get into student loan debt honestly believing that higher education will lead them to the higher wages needed to pay that debt back. Universities are guaranteed to be paid by students, whether via recoverable debt or not, because bankruptcy is not on the table.
> Think to the unintended consequences of what you thought were just good intentions.
Exactly. If your good intention is to prevent the taxpayer from taking the burden of a broken system, your unintended consequence is millions of people living with unrecoverable debt, and the perpetuation of that same broken system.