The student loan industry rakes in billions of dollars in profits on the backs of ignorant, impressionable teenagers who don’t know the first thing about finance and pay exorbitant interest rates. Then, when some of them have trouble repaying because they have trouble finding good jobs, the establishment smears them as irresponsible. Joe Biden was right to suspend student loan repayments due to COVID-19, but that’s temporary. Student loans shouldn’t exist at all, but until we go to all grants, it should be a zero-profit business.
Student Loan Lenders Are Predatory
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Politically, Biden was wrong to suspend the payments unless he intends to dismiss them totally. Why? Because no one will remember come Vote Time that he took the pressure off for a while. They’ll just remember that he let the pressure get put back on. No one remembers the pause between the blows of a beating. Just when it finally stops.
And what will Biden have to offer in the near future? Roe v. Wade’s about to go away. The climate summit was a fiasco that everyone under 30 saw straight through. Build Back Better was vetoed by Pres. Manchin. Oh, I know! In a few months, the dems will begin the weally sewious portion of their investigation of Donald Trump. Except they won’t. The Republicans will shut it down. Even if they don’t, Trump will skate. Why? Because the dem elites are just as corrupt as Trump, but where Trump would wipe his mouth on the curtains, the dems use the fine linen napkins in their laps.
Biden desperately needs a popular (in both senses) victory. Forgiving all student debt (which he could do unilaterally in a minute) is an easy win for Biden. And I think if Biden actually won something, he might learn that he likes it. Will it be enough to win the midterms? Maybe. But the Republicans will chop his mandate right off on Election Day if his owners and operators don’t get this fool out there on the stage doing something to make the proles go ooh and aah.