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Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

brookings.edu

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Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#21

Post by nate_meurer »

anm89 wrote: post #14
brunellus wrote: post #4

There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative. Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game. It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.

so change the bankruptcy laws. that doesn't require forgiving the loans.

This is the correct answer. Personal bankruptcy is the tool developed and refined for over a century to address exactly this problem.

It should surprise nobody that the banking interests (and industry-adjacent politicians) who pushed so hard for student debtors to be uniquely deprived of their right to shed their debt through the courts are now pushing for taxpayers to repay their unsecured loans.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#22

Post by nate_meurer »

syki wrote: post #20
nate_meurer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay close attention to verse 15. Who's money are we talking about here?

As I said, the government plays the role of the landowner. Perhaps you have the mistaken belief that the money you pay in taxes is still your money and therefore you don’t believe the government can play the role of the landowner.

> Perhaps you have the mistaken belief that the money you pay in taxes is still your money.

More precisely, I'd say that the government's right to take our resources by force and redistribute them is constitutionally subject and subordinate to their obligation to represent our will as voters. Maybe that makes me a radical?

I also wonder why, per your analogy, you think student debtors have some kind of employer-employee relationship with the state?

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#23

Post by jamjamjamjamjam »

tamaharbor wrote: post #12

I have always paid all of my debts, including student loans. I think it is quite unfair that some will get off scot-free. What lesson does that teach?

The lesson here is some of us aren’t selfish. Ive paid all my debts, and I found it awful. I would rather a greater proportion of humans weren’t debt slaves

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#24

Post by Tanjreeve »

>But that’s because such measures exclude the very asset the person borrowed to buy—an education that increases lifetime earnings. That’s like assessing a homeowner’s wealth by counting their mortgage balance but not the value of their home.

The value of a higher education that it's sold to young people with is the income it allegedly brings in. If that's the case someone uses the product and their income goes up then we already have a means to tax that income it's called income tax. If the product fails to deliver that income but the money is still taken (and as others mention in a non dischargeable way) then I don't see how that isn't fradulent.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#25

Post by nickysielicki »

zarzavat wrote: post #13
twoodfin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that speaks to whether the proposed $50k forgiveness is a regressive policy relative to other potential uses of several hundred billion dollars.

You can say that about anything. Fixing streets is regressive, it only benefits people with cars. Therefore we should not fix streets. It’s laughable to call student loan forgiveness “regressive”. The word “regressive” is supposed to be used for policies that benefit the wealthy people more than average people, not for policies that benefit average people more than low income people.

The concept of regressive and progressive taxes are well defined and have nothing to do with the usage of “regressive” and “progressive” in a political context.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#26

Post by kelseyfrog »

tamaharbor wrote: post #12

I have always paid all of my debts, including student loans. I think it is quite unfair that some will get off scot-free. What lesson does that teach?

This is an excellent argument that nothing should get better for anyone.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#27

Post by dTal »

nate_meurer wrote: post #18
syki wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathew 20:13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ For student loan forgiveness the government is in the role of the landowner in this parable.

Pay close attention to verse 15. Who's money are we talking about here?

To focus on the landowner is to entirely miss the point. It's a parable about envy, not about free enterprise.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#28

Post by imtringued »

tamaharbor wrote: post #12

I have always paid all of my debts, including student loans. I think it is quite unfair that some will get off scot-free. What lesson does that teach?

If everyone did that we would have negative interest rates and from my experience economists aren't ready for a world that isn't enslaved through involuntary debt.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#29

Post by imtringued »

nate_meurer wrote: post #22
syki wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, the government plays the role of the landowner. Perhaps you have the mistaken belief that the money you pay in taxes is still your money and therefore you don’t believe the government can play the role of the landowner.

> Perhaps you have the mistaken belief that the money you pay in taxes is still your money. More precisely, I'd say that the government's right to take our resources by force and redistribute them is constitutionally subject and subordinate to their obligation to represent our will as voters. Maybe that makes me a radical? I also wonder why, per your analogy, you think student debtors have some kind of employer-emplo…

You are extremely radical because you talked about resources.

The government should absolutely tax limited resources to encourage efficiency and as little waste as possible. What the government should stay away from is taxing human work. There is absolutely no reason to do that.

Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth

#30

Post by syki »

nate_meurer wrote: post #22
syki wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, the government plays the role of the landowner. Perhaps you have the mistaken belief that the money you pay in taxes is still your money and therefore you don’t believe the government can play the role of the landowner.

> Perhaps you have the mistaken belief that the money you pay in taxes is still your money. More precisely, I'd say that the government's right to take our resources by force and redistribute them is constitutionally subject and subordinate to their obligation to represent our will as voters. Maybe that makes me a radical? I also wonder why, per your analogy, you think student debtors have some kind of employer-emplo…

The government is owed money. It has the ability to forgive it. That is its prerogative (viewing it as a single entity). It can do with its money (or obligations of debt to it) as it sees fit. Just like the landowner in the parable is able to do pay whatever he wants to the workers he hired last.

A long time ago I was on unemployment pay. It was a meager sum of money. I wasn’t upset that during the pandemic unemployment was quite generous.

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