The Patriot Post® · Biden's College Loan Forgiveness Ploy

Desperately seeking a winning political issue, Joe Biden and his Democrats have latched onto their latest wealth redistribution scheme in the name of promoting “equity.” And that “winning” political issue happens to be one of the biggest scams Democrats have tried to pull on the American people in years. It’s college loan debt forgiveness, which Biden has been incrementally moving toward by repeatedly extending the COVID pandemic repayment freeze.

Earlier this month, Biden’s Department of Education announced another extension of the repayment freeze through August 31. In the interim, the DOE says it “will continue to assess the financial impacts of the pandemic on student loan borrowers and to prepare to transition borrowers smoothly back into repayment.”

This is clearly a ploy for Democrats to fish for voters — voters who are not primarily in the lower-income bracket, as the majority of people repaying college loans are in the upper- and middle-income brackets. In fact, 40% of student loan debt is held by individuals with advanced degrees, such as doctors and lawyers, and just 10% of all student loan debt is held by the bottom fifth of income earners.

In short, the Democrats’ student loan forgiveness gambit would be a boon for more affluent Americans, as the top 20% of income earners would be the ones benefiting most. Meanwhile, Americans who have already paid off their college loans or never went to college would effectively be paying off the debt of the upper class. As Charles Cooke observes, “When advocates suggest that the debt should be ‘canceled,’ what they mean is that responsibility for paying it should be transferred — at the point of a gun — from the people who borrowed and spent the money to people who did not.”

And the brazen rationale for this is, once again, buying Democrat votes. “So why the push for forgiveness?” asks the New York Post editorial board. “Well, a big chunk of those debt-burdened, well-educated voters are Democrats who live in suburban areas where the party is trying to shore up votes. Forgiveness would also appeal to younger voters, among whom Biden’s support has collapsed.”

The genius of the Democrats’ strategy is that the payment freeze ends not long before the midterm elections, and Democrats will blame Republicans for the fact that folks are once again having to make debt payments. It’s only because mean Republicans stand in the way, they’ll say.

Republicans need to expose this dangerous and disingenuous government wealth distribution scheme for what it really is. Despite what the Democrats may claim, this is not about helping the poor and underprivileged. In fact, this will do just the opposite, increasing the economic burden on the lower class in order to help the upper class. At the same time, it incentivizes colleges and universities to continue increasing their prices because taxpayers, not the students taking the loans, ultimately will be the ones on the hook for the bill.