The Latest Student-Loan Charade

Wall Street Journal ^ | June 9, 2014

[Oldeconomybuyer]

You can tell an election is coming, because President Obama is promising more student-loan relief to young people who are growing less enthralled with his economic record. The latest exercise unveiled Monday is also supposed to make these young people forget the loan burden that earlier free lunches supposedly provided. The taxpayer losses will come on some other President's watch.

The President also tried to help Democrats struggling to hold the Senate by endorsing still another expansion of student-loan subsidies. Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to hold a vote this week on Sen. Elizabeth Warren's bill to allow borrowers to refinance their old federal or private loans into new government loans at lower rates.

The Warren bill has no chance to pass the House, as Democrats know. The Warren bill and the Obama debt-forgiveness-by-fiat are attempts to change the subject from the cascading examples of government failure—the VA scandal, the Taliban prisoner swap, the rising cost of health insurance under ObamaCare. In the Obama era, government failure is never a failure. It's another political opportunity to call for more of the same.

[1raider1]

He reminds me, more and more, of Homer Simpson who, when running for mayor, promised the voters that he would have people, on the city payroll, come to their houses and take out the garbage. He was elected, of course, but blew the entire city fiscal year budget in about two months.

[shalom aleichem]

All this weak ba$tard is doing is inducing student loan holders to NOT pay on their loans in hopes that his constant hints he will forgive the loans is just around the corner.

[Mears]

I guess I’m old fashioned but I was taught,and I taught my kids,that if you borrow you’re obliged to re-pay.

Why on earth would we help people who default?

This country has gone stark raving mad.

.

[July4]

Apparently Mr Obama is going to trade loan forgiveness for votes. How does he plan to compensate those of us who paid our own way? Oh, I forgot. Students who work and save their earnings to pay for an education aren't likely to be Democrats anyway.

[FrdmLvr]

My son had his student loan paid off within the first couple of years after he graduated. Granted, it wasn’t huge, but he paid it because he wanted to get out from under the obligation. I’m so proud that he turned out to be such a responsible conservative. Now, if he could just meet a nice conservative girl and settle down…..

[Cloverfarm]

If there is a bail out, I will be bummed ... I paid my student loans off, now I have to pay off somebody else’s? My own kids, maybe, if they need help ... but everyone else in the country’s?

Does anyone else have a problem with this?

[Mears]

“Now, if he could just meet a nice conservative girl and settle down…..”

---

Good luck with that.

I have a grandaughter who has an Obama tee. We do our best,but sometimes —————————.

:-)

.

[FrdmLvr]

I have a huge problem with it! For the exact reason you gave.

[FrdmLvr]

I have a huge problem with it! For the exact reason you gave.

[FrdmLvr]

I have a huge problem with it! For the exact reason you gave.

[same old song]

What a band-aid on a much larger problem.

I graduated college a few years ago, however I started school when the economy was strong (2005). I looked at loans as an investment, and my debt is still fairly modest compared to a lot of others. Sure the investment didn't pay off, but whatever. I deal. I have a highly technical degree barely making over minimum wage, sure it isn't fun eating beans and rice for the third night in a row, but I'm doing it on my own without the government's help. Others can too, they just don't want to.

The bigger picture is, people of my generation wouldn't struggle so much or seem like we needed some strange kind of bailout IF WE HAD JOBS.

[texas booster]

Since the big 0 is using the interest off student loans to pay for Obamacare, exactly how is this legal?

Remember the whole reason that the military is cutting like crazy? The need to cover new outlays with cuts?

This is intended only to make a political point - lower payments on student loans from 2007 and older?

Buying votes indeed.

[dnadem]

As you said, you have a job but you're eating rice and beans for the third year in a row. The problem is becoming not joblessness but, as the article in question pointed out, underemployment. Frozen middle class wages is the greatest detriment to our economy. Notice that the stock market hit another record high today and at the same time new home sales are half of what it normally is. Young folks can't buy houses: they are living with their folks or renting into their 30s. Start with better pay and folks can pay their bills. Increase minimum wage and tap into the trillions in capital being withheld in tax shelters around the world. That would serve to begin to grease the economic pump that is the middle class. The middle class is the worlds greatest purchasing power. As has been proved, when the middle class has money it spends. If that can begin (start with minimum wage increases to put upward pressure on overall wages) then our economy will experience a real recovery (where everyone benefits, not just stock holders) not seen since the 1950s.