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Notes -
How will Republicans responds to Biden's student loan giveaway?
Even though the Supreme Court scuppered Biden's plan to forgive student loan debt without congressional approval, he is apparently doing it anyway. So far, it would appear that 4.75 million people have had loans forgiven for a total cost of $167 billion.
Here's a link to a recent Biden administration press release.
I will admit, the devil is in the details. I am not going to comment on the constitutional legality, the many ways to qualify for forgiveness, nor the amount given to high-income earners, which some have claimed is substantial.
But the total cost is staggering. It amounts to over $1000 for every American who pays income tax.
Clearly, this money has electoral implications. The base of people who have large student debts is presumed to be mostly Democratic voters. By giving this group a mean payment of $35,000 each, the Biden administration hopes to increase their enthusiasm to vote. Even the ones who do lean towards Trump might view Biden favorably after getting (almost) enough money to buy a new Tesla Model 3.
Buying votes goes back as far as democracy does. Famously, Julius Caesar was forced to conquer southern Spain after going broke buying votes to become Pontifex Maximus. In recent times, some have argued that farm subsidies amount to vote buying. But, while special interests have always played a large role in American politics, student debt forgiveness is possibly the closest thing to naked vote buying we've seen in our lifetimes.
So... how do the Republicans respond? Whose votes should they purchase with a fig leaf of social justice? I'd propose a group that honestly needs it and creates a lot of value for society: blue collar workers. People who work 30 hours a week or more and make less than $30/hour should get an "earned income credit" of $10,000 a year.
If we're going to just be giving money away, give it to the workers, not to excess elites.
I will admit I'm slightly surprised the Republicans haven't tried to weaponize student loans the opposite direction (just observing, not encouraging). For one, it seems they could probably convince fiscal conservatives to shoot for some kind of clawback for loan forgiveness: why should universities with huge endowments and non-profit status get to keep the tuition paid by students who haven't found value in their degrees? It seems easy enough to extract some fraction of that debt (not all forgiveness is the fault of institutions, like the disability claims) from future loaned tuition to those institutions. This would seem to be terrible for places like small liberal arts colleges and in general for specific programs ("X Studies") that the right has an axe to grind against.
The other avenue would be to use the threat of withdrawing funding against the institutions themselves: "Columbia University has garnered enough DOE complaints about national origin discrimination that we are reconsidering the eligibility of its students for federal loans starting with the incoming class in the fall of 2025." You don't have to screw over existing students: just the hit to the admissions pipeline from such a threat would probably be devastating to academic rankings.
Inez Stepman's recommended taxing university endowments, but I haven't seen it become a wider talking point.
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Republicans lack the power to do that. They're not in charge of the executive OR the legislature, they have only a bare majority in one house.
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