The Democrats appear to continue being in lockstep on what we should be doing about student debt. U.S. citizens currently owe $1.6 trillion dollars. Bernie Sanders recently tweeted that going to college isn’t a crime, so we should get rid of the costs and debts associated with it. Ilhan Omar appears to agree with him. She also calls for Wall Street to handle the problem.
“As someone who’s part of the debt generation, I wanted to make sure that we were creating a proposal that would alleviate the kind of stress that people are dealing with,” the 37-year-old Democrat from Minnesota said. According to her, the process would be easy. Add a tax to every transaction and the money would accumulate rapidly.
“We had the opportunity to bail out Wall Street, and now Wall Street gets the opportunity to bail out the American people,” Omar said. To her, it doesn’t matter if someone is wealthy and able to pay back their loans. Everyone would get forgiveness. The full $1.6 trillion in student debt would be paid off. Both sides of the political aisle appear to disagree about the process.
Student Debt and the Economy
Sanders says a small tax on Wall Street transactions would raise $2.4 trillion in about ten years. The CBO, who often looks into these matters, hasn’t backed up whether that’s true or not. He still believes it’s essential to try. Regardless of what party you’re a part of, any kind of massive debt like this hurts the economy.
“This debt isn’t a rich-person problem,” she said. “Trump and Trump’s children are not benefiting from this cancellation. They don’t carry student debt. Most of the people who carry student debt are the poor and the middle class.”
There is a lot of truth to this. It’s mostly the lower- and middle-class people struggling to pay off their student debt. Many recent surveys found that millennials in particular were putting of making many major life decisions. They were still living at home, waiting to get married and start a family, and even not buying the things other generations got to buy.
This does have a large cumulative impact on the economy. By wiping away this debt, it makes life so much easier for the 44 million who have student debt. They then have more money in their pocket, which they will spend. This could be a massive spark the economy needs to keep it going strong.
