A basic rule in psychology is, “Never reward bad behavior.” Rewarding behavior, whether good or bad, will cause it to increase. It is time we start rewarding good behavior. Where is the reward for the Americans who, with our usual spirit, plan and save and make the country stronger. We need to add to the economy rather than subtract from it. We need to create jobs and spend out own money rather than continue to take from others.
On average, people with college degrees earn $1M more in their lifetime than someone who doesn’t graduate from college. Shouldn’t most college grades pay their own $10,000 out of that extra $1,000,000?
And why should a hair stylist making $28,000 pay part of the college costs of a computer programmer making $110,000? Or a grocery clerk making $27,000 paying expenses for a financial analyst making $82,000 or a chemical engineer making $97,000?
According to Professor Kent Smetters at Wharton – “Almost 70% of the benefit is going to the top 60% of the income distribution, so this is not targeting low-income households.”
Why do they keep using the word “cancel?” Perhaps because they understand that Americans are, by nature, fair-minded individuals. By using the word “cancel,” it’s as though the loan goes “poof” into the air, and the costs are borne by those making less money. The reality is that they are not canceling anything. Instead, the government is proposing to TRANSFER this overly inflated debt from one group of people to another while taking a cut for themselves, of course, for the administration of the transfer. Meanwhile, they are pitting two different groups of people against each other in hopes that we won’t notice where our money is actually going.
We all know there is no magic wand that makes money appear. However, the federal government has yet to learn this integral piece of knowledge most of us grasp after our first paycheck. In 2015, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York did a study proving that “every $1 in subsidized federal student loans increases college tuition by $0.60”. So what does the government do with this knowledge? Install more government intervention, obviously.
How do you undo years of a failed government program? Well…
Anyone who has spent time in a government job or studying government programs knows it is next to impossible. The good news is there are solutions, like letting the colleges borrow the money and loan to students, as suggested by Dan Fishman in his blog The College Catastrophe. Or, I don’t know, maybe allow us to return to a time when the government wasn’t involved in our postsecondary education, like in 1990, when public college was $2,750 before the government took 100% control over the student loan program.
Which all leads to something no one else seems to be discussing. Who gave Biden the power to do this? Seeing one person make a decision for 43 million Americans that impacts all 332 million Americans is entirely against the foundation of this nation. Whether the people reading this are for or against student loan forgiveness, allowing one person this much power should be of the utmost concern. The amount of taxed and printed money our government spends should always be the top issue, but this has now superseded it. Our previous presidents have set a precedent of executive orders with Obama at 291, Trump at 220, and Biden now at 96. So, where does this overreaching power stop?