Senator Elizabeth has a new plan for existing student loan debts, and the American people are wondering whether it’s fair. Americans are concerned that it may not be fair for taxpayers to pay off another person’s loans, and whether or not the people who are having their loans paid off will be penalized for their lack of financial planning.
On Monday, Warren, who is one of the leaders in the 2020 presidential race, showing that she is willing to go further for education policies than the other Democratic candidates. According to Warren’s new plan, 42 million Americans will have their student loan debt completely canceled.
According to the plan, each student with a household income of up to $100,000 would get a relief of $50,000. Those with higher incomes are entitled to loan reductions as well, but anyone whose household brings in over $250,000 wouldn’t be entitled to anything.
In a blog post written by Senator Warren, she wrote: “For example, a person with household income of $130,000 gets $40,000 in cancellation [of student debt], while a person with household income of $160,000 gets $30,000 in cancellation.” That may seem fair for some, but there are quite a few Americans who are less than pleased with this new plan.
Plenty of people decided to go onto social media websites to ask their questions about the new plan. Many of those people don’t agree with the idea since, in their mind, the plan punishes those that didn’t go to overpriced colleges and paid their loans as they were supposed to.
Josh Jordan wrote: “Do I get a refund for having chosen a cheaper public university so I wouldn’t be riddled with a ton of debt? Seriously this is stupid – everyone knows what they’re borrowing when they go through the process and I want no part in paying off everyone else’s student loans.”
“You better retro that and pay back all of us who diligently paid our loans back in full if you pull this bull—-,” wrote one Twitter user. “NO! I signed on the dotted line, I will pay it off. I still owe over 40K and I refuse to let you rob me of fulfilling my obligation,” wrote another.
Conservative author, Kurt Schlichter, summed up the entire proposal when he said: “But I don’t wanna pay for other people’s college or their college debts.” Apparently, Warren’s new plan has a one-time price tag of $640 billion to the federal government.
According to Warren, the cost of her policy would be “more than covered by my Ultra-Millionaire Tax — a 2% annual tax on the 75,000 families with $50 million or more in wealth.” Warren’s new policy is in addition to her proposal for universal free college.
While a lot of people would be better off financially without their student loan debt hanging over them, is it really up to taxpayers to take care of their debt? Only time will tell, but until then, keep making those loan payments because you’re not out of the woods yet.
