Does anyone have the number that would have been required to pay off all student loans that SCOTUS blocked?

One time $10k per borrower forgiveness was estimated to cost $300 to $330 billion.

Of course this cost would be distributed over time, and the economic benefits of putting substantial spending money in the pockets of younger adults would have the potential to significantly offset or exceed these costs.

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xd1936 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> ...cancel about $430 billion in debt principal and affect nearly all borrowers...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf

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nerdsniper 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Total student loans are about $1.8 trillion. SCOTUS blocked forgiveness on $400 billion of that.

Trump-led tax cut policies reduced revenues by ~$1.5 trillion in his first term, and ~$5 trillion in his second term. $800B of PPP loans were forgiven. The oft-cited ICE and CBP budget increases were about $140 billion.

I can't find many other policies championed by Trump that accounted for increases >$200B in increased spending. As a result, there's not really any good 1:1 "Trump is willing to spend $400B on $X but not student loans". Most of his national debt impact has been via tax cuts rather than spending. Where spending did increase in large amounts, it was mostly for the Pentagon, and some % of those increases likely would have occurred under any other administration - so it's hard for me to carve out what Pentagon budget increases were due to his policies vs. the base-case for how much they would have increased otherwise.

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8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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SegfaultSeagull 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

$400 billion

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pb7 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

$400B

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mc32 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’d be okay with them forgiving student loans so long as they also pay me back for what I paid back.

I think the best course is to allow students to default on their loans. With backed loans Unis know they’ll get their money one way or the other and keep ballooning their admin costs.

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delecti 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why does improving things for future generations need to be held up until we can undo mistakes already done? The ladder got pulled up and some of us needed to scramble, but can't we lower the ladder back down for them anyway?

We can do both. We can help people already saddled with debt, and also do things to prevent future generations from being saddled with debt in the first place. People who managed to climb out of the hole (a demographic I am also part of) are the least in need of consideration.

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erentz an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Democrats shouldn’t have wasted effort on trying to reduce student loans simply because the constituency (students) didn’t even give them recognition for it. They simply blamed Biden when SCOTUS blocked it.

But more generally we shouldn’t do one off things like this when we still haven’t fixed the cause of the problem. A better policy would be to start by making community college or first two years of college free or something like that.

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mc32 an hour ago | parent [-]

I am onboard with free community college. Unsure kids can figure out their majors before they fork out beaucoup bucks for pricier institutions. They should also be able to default on loans they can’t repay.

Biden is guilty of pretense. He very well knew or should have know this had very small chance of this manoeuvre being upheld. It’s akin to Dems or Reps in the Congress opposing or in favor of something knowing the opposite of their stance is the forgone outcome just to look good to their constituents.

	▲	krapp an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Biden is guilty of being a Democrat in the middle of a Republican putsch. If Trump had tried forgiving student loans it would have gone off without a hitch. Congress would have fallen in line and SCOTUS would have favored him. Everyone complaining that Biden was practicing communism would be praising Trump instead.

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pb7 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because we're still alive and also have a future and if the goal is to help people, there is no reason to draw the line at "paid it off already" when money is fungible and can still be used to secure a more comfortable future. Having paid off debts doesn't mean you climbed out of the hole, it means you did the responsible thing when you could have easily stashed the money away for your own retirement.

	▲	delecti 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not saying we shouldn't help people like us, who already paid off large sums of loans. I'm asking why we should only help people still saddled with debt if we also help people like us at the same time. That's classic crab mentality. > it means you did the responsible thing Not all fields are lucrative enough that paying off a pile of loans is even feasible. With how college is often pushes as all but required for many kids, it isn't possible to make an informed decision.

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mc32 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We can help them by allowing students to default on their loans. It still costs us taxpayers but at least it keeps universities honest.

	▲	alphawhisky 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you want to keep Unis honest, why not make them all public and financially regulated? Seems like the free market incentives should be removed from this essential service...

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Ekaros 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think fairest would have been to give everyone some lump sum. Say median of student loans. Those with student loans or tax debt or medical debt would have it automatically applied towards them. And the rest would get it as tax return.