Sanders called the plan “truly a revolutionary proposal.”
Really? How is it “revolutionary” for a politician to force others to pay for stuff, especially debt they didn’t incur? After all, Obama beat him to the punch when he floated the idea of paying for underwater mortgages (where people kept refinancing and spending the money on cars, goodies, vacations) and ending up started the TEA Party movement.
Socialism is based on a number of things: Envy, politics (because if everything you get comes from Government, you think you’re tired of politics NOW?), top-down control, and shared misery.
Sure, Bernie, AOC, and pretty much the entire Democrat Presidential field has gone full Socialist – there ARE no more questions to folks like them of “What is the difference between Democrats and Socialists?”. Many of the top Dems just even two or three years ago said they weren’t – but couldn’t say why. Now, they’re running on being such. Free healthcare for all! Free college for all! Jobs for all! We’ll give you free food, housing, phone; even cars in some cases. They don’t even bat an eye.
And false promises of Freedom. Socialism promises much – an actual utopia for if you no longer have to worry about the necessities of life via Government, you can be the best you can be. You can attain your “fullness of capability.” If because of “life’s stuff” you can’t – you aren’t really “free.” And you aren’t “Free” if you have voluntarily taken on debt to get a degree on the idea that it will result in higher earnings (a private debt in hopes of a better private economic life). How DARE Society expect you to be an adult and pay what you owe?
And that’s where Bernie has a plan for you: Poof! All gone. No reservations and no reserve (like Fauxcahauntus who promised almost the same thing but has some income limits). The essence of his plan is:
- will affect about 45 million debtors
- total is about $1.5 to $1.6 Trillion (more than mortgage / credit card / auto-truck debt)
- cost will be borne by “lessening” wealth inequality by taxing “the rich” on stock / bond / derivatives trading (which also would include the middle class retirement instruments) as he hates Wall Street and billionaires (can’t hate on millionaires any more as he just became one – while in government service his whole life).
- that take $2.2 Trillion out of the private economy in 10 years
- make public colleges tuition “free” (Feds to pay about $48 billion / year with, of course, strings attached)
- the average loan amount is $35,000. The price of a car (which most of us, making the sacrifice, pay it off in 2-5 years depending on motivation))
- most student debtors, all of the political hemming and hawing, are current on their loans.
He was quite proud of himself:
“This proposal completely eliminates student debt in this country and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation, the millennial generation, to a lifetime of debt for the crime of doing the right thing — and that is going out and getting a higher education,” Sanders, flanked by activists and supporters, said at a news conference in Washington on Monday.
And CNN had this line in its reporting:
Sanders unveiled a plan for mostly free tuition before the presidential campaign
Funny, I didn’t see anything anywhere it said that professors and staff at these colleges were going to be working for free? And if you believe that all the debt will be forgiven, you’re an economic pygmy who doesn’t grok TANSTAAFL. Since Obama nationalized (yes, Socialism!) the student loan industry, we TAXPAYERS are on the hook for all that money. And we ought to be STEAMED. All Sanders is doing is transferring that debt from students and grads to us.
How is that fair?
- I paid my costs myself with help from my single mom. I, at one point, was working 4 part-time jobs as well as a full-time course load – no debt (and independent of any govt $$)
- What is the fairness of those that did like I did?
- How about those that took more time to get their degree so as to not pile up debt?
- What about Mom and Dad that took out loans, especially home equity loans, so that their kids didn’t have to use loans?
- How about those that bit down on the austerity way of life, paid it off early, and then got on with the rest of their lives?
Sanders’ plan screws them over. It rewards those that piled debt instrument on a loan over a loan…run up $10K in debt? Paid! Run up a $100K in debt? Paid!
Socialism, in this case, has allowed students to privatize the profit (higher lifetime earnings) but socializes the cost. Isn’t that what Socialist generally protest, right? But because “VOTES!” And in the case of Sanders, continuing to grow government. You see, his plan doesn’t reduce govt loan programs at all, Which will mean that a new crop of students can also go into debt. And the moral hazard becomes obvious: well, if American taxpayers just assumed all those folks debts, they HAVE to do it again for me, right?
A never-ending waterfall of dollars. Because Progressives believe it is a Right.
How can it be a Right when it automatically places an Obligation on others that had nothing to do with it?
And that’s the problem with Socialism – the language redefinition. Sorry, if your Right demands something of me to “exercise” your’s, it’s not a Right in the first place.
(H/T: CNN, Breitbart, Conservative Review, Washington Examiner, CNN again, Hot Air, and CNSNews)
