I support any plan that makes an attempt at remedying the situation that led to all this debt. For instance, Bernie's proposal caps future interest rates for college loans at 1.8%. Awsome; let's do it. To be honest, I support it regardless, but the discourse seems painfully condescending and reductive.
This bad boy has made it to the front page several times this week. Today the top comment was “You can stop the trolley at any time but would that be fair to the people the trolley has already crushed?”
Why are we not discussing this honestly? None of the proposals that have come close to fruition attempt to stop the trolley. They pause the trolley, and then it immediately resumes crushing people. When spanky says “imagine thinking this is a good argument for maintaining that system”, he is straight-up pretending that Biden's 50k or AOC and Omar's Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2019 would change that system. They wouldn't. They don't attempt to. They would not prevent a single person from having to make the choice between taking on debt and entering the military. Either you're already enlisted and you're screwed, or you missed the one-time debt forgiveness and you're screwed.
I don't want to argue about whether student loan forgiveness is a good idea. I think it is. But I also think that to do so without addressing the system by which all that debt accrued is a feckless band-aid, and a regressive one at that (benefits mainly the rich). If we think student debt is bad, let's change that system instead of choosing a batch of one-time winners and calling it job done as the exact same problem regenerates.