One law for the rich and
The serfs must continue to be serfs.
The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down President Biden’s plan for federal student loan forgiveness. Millions of federal borrowers will not see their debts decreased or erased.
…
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the “disappointing and cruel” ruling “shows the callousness of the MAGA Republican-controlled Supreme Court.”
“The hypocrisy is clear: as justices accept lavish, six-figure gifts, they don’t dare to help Americans saddled with student loan debt, instead siding with the powerful, big-monied interests,” he said, referencing the court’s recent string of ethics scandals.
The rich get richer and the poor get…ever-increasing debt.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez similarly homed in on the controversies surrounding the justices, specifically Justice Samuel Alito.
He was accused last week of failing to disclose a 2008 luxury fishing trip with hedge fund Paul Singer and not recusing himself from cases Singer later had in front of the Supreme Court. When ProPublica asked Alito questions, he instead responded with a defensive, pre-emptive op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
Ocasio-Cortez said the court’s “corruption undercuts its own legitimacy by putting its rulings up for sale.”
Trump wins again.
Does this mean if someone asks me an embarrassing question, I get to not respond by writing an opinion piece in a compliant publication? Cushy!
Boss: Did you remember to lock the door before you left?
Me: Read my latest in the Globe and Mail; that should explain everything.
Boss: What happened to the $2000 that was in the cash register?
Me: Check out my op-ed in the Free Press.
Boss: Why are you carrying a suitcase?
Me: See my column in tomorrow’s Star. Gotta run!
lol
[…] a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on One law for the rich […]
I know a lot of people who think student loans shouldn’t be forgiven because theirs wasn’t. That’s a stupid argument. I paid off my student loans; what could I have done with the money? Since I donate to causes, probably a lot .
College is a net good for society, and we should be willing to pay for it. We shouldn’t see students coming out so heavily in debt they won’t break even until their kids are grown and ready for college…and it starts again.
The legal justification for this was sketchy at best.
But if we want populist courts that just ignore the law and do what’s right (which seems to be the implication, as everyone unhappy about this is saying “why aren’t they helping these poor college students?” rather than “here’s why this was legal”), people with college debt do significantly better than average on pretty much every economic measurement, so a wealth transfer to them seems ill-advised.
Sleazy behavior by judges shouldn’t be tolerated, but it doesn’t follow that the remedy for said behavior is allowing an illegal student loan forgiveness program.
If we want to wipe out college debt, elect people to Congress that will pass a law doing that and a president that will sign that law. The courts are supposed to just decide what’s legal. They seem to have done a decent job here. They also recently made some decisions that made conservatives unhappy, so they’re not doing everything along partisan lines.
If Congress passes a law and the president signs it and then the SC strikes it down for no good reason, then that would be something to complain about. But note that this whole thing started with Biden asking Congress to pass such a law, then, when they didn’t, finding a way he could allegedly do it without a new law after all. Is it such a surprise that didn’t hold water?
I’ve never understood why what amounts to a transfer of wealth from the less-well-off half of society that didn’t go to college to the better-off half that did is regarded as a left-wing policy. (And applying the term “serf” to the latter rather than the former seems peculiar.)
It’s not surprising that swathes of working-class Americans don’t see the Democrats as being for them, and look for alternatives … however unsuitable those alternatives are.
The remedy here is to correct the ridiculous cost of tuition in the US. Colleges have hyped tuition through the roof, letting costs balloon, in the expectation that, in the end, the taxpayer will pick up the tab. And if the taxpayer does indeed do that, then the spiral will continue. Harvard (for example) has 7000 undergraduates, 2400 faculty to teach them … and 7000 administrative staff.
Universities are functioning as hugely expensive finishing schools for the middle classes, which are great fun but only value for money if it’s not you that’s paying.
In terms of benefit to society, we should reduce student numbers to perhaps 30% of the cohort, and couple that with a drastic reduction in costs, firing 9 out of 10 adminstrators, starting with anyone with the words “D”, “E” or “I” in their job title.
I think I agree with most of that. I do think far more people should take advantage of community colleges (now just called “colleges” because “community” is seen as a pejorative) and then finish at a university instead of spending far too much for 4 years there.
I would like to point out that the vast majority of students in US colleges are neither rich nor elite. The public colleges cater to a lot of people who have barely squeaked through life, and are trying to make a place for themselves. Student loans are an enormous burden to people starting out as something other than doctors and lawyers.
Pay off a student loan on a school teacher’s salary, while still feeding your kids and paying your rent/house payment? Some schools/states have policies to pay off student loans for teachers who fulfill certain criteria. Nebraska does. I found out about it after I’d been with the school twelve years and my loans were paid off. From what I heard, very few teachers (in Nebraska; I don’t know about other states) actually get to utilize the program. I guess it’s more for looks than function.
I will say, I do get very tired of the “elite” trope. Yes, elite colleges breed elite graduates. More students go to public colleges, non-elite colleges, than go to the elite. These are people who won’t start at a big bucks job, but will start at the bottom and work up. And paying off student loan debt would be a major help.
Ophelia, I agree with you. One of the problems here (I presume it is common elsewhere) is that guidance counselors at the high schools try to filter everyone into a four year college. And they usually try to filter them into the private four year college in our town, where a single class costs more than an entire semester of my doctorate cost.