More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two large COVID-19 relief initiatives. That’s according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs designed to help small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years.
I die a bit inside every time someone tells me we can’t afford student debt relief, but somehow we can afford this level of corruption.
The bigger problem with student debt relief is that it doesn’t solve the problem of how that debt is generated in the first place. By all means we should forgive a bunch of federal student debt, even buy out private student loans, but the problem will just start building up again until we’re in an untenable debt situation again in the future. It’s kicking the can down the road, the same complaint that a lot of people in favor of student debt relief have about the US debt ceiling discussion.
The perverse economic incentives right now push lenders to loan out as much as possible, and that drives cost bloat at the university level as they expand their cost structure to capture more and more of the available money lent out for education. What I’d like to see is debt relief paired with actual fixes, such as making student debt (either private or both federal and private) dischargeable by bankruptcy.
Dealing with one problem doesn’t mean the other can’t also be dealt with after. Small steps are good; not everything has to be all or nothing.
Biden has two “band-aid” fixes that I’m aware of.
The first as you mentioned is the student debt relief which doesn’t address the root cause of the problem that colleges can charge exorbitant fees to 17 year olds who have no concept of financial responsibility.
The other band-aid is the pardoning of non-violent marijuana offenders. I’m all for these people getting their lives back but it’s 2023 and marijuana is still fucking illegal in the United States even though most of its citizens and most of its states have decided that it shouldn’t be illegal.
I don’t get Biden. He talks a big game but he can’t seem to make any meaningful changes because he’s too busy losing the gun control war.