How I would handle the student loan debt issue if I were POTUS
(I’m sure it would still piss everyone off, but I really don’t GAF)
If I were the President of the United States, I definitely would not announce a plan to just wipe out everyone’s federal student loans, because that obviously went over like a fart in church all through the land. The screamers screamed, the yellers yelled, the whiners whined…I got a migraine thinking about it.
Instead, I think all the loans get refinanced by whatever sleazy federal institution wrote them up in the first place.
The new loan would have the predatory interest rates wiped away. The new amount would be the original principal + a reasonable FLAT interest rate (I’ll use 5% in my imaginary story, i guess). This would be sufficient for the newest loans, those with only a few payments (or none) made. Any payments already made will be credited to the borrower’s account, reducing what they owe.
Everyone would still be responsible for paying back what they borrowed, +5%. Because people SHOULD pay back their debt. Full-stop.
Now, let’s talk about the OTHER people. The people who have been making payments for years, only to never see the balance go down on their principal. Or the ones who are 30 years out, have paid back more than they borrowed, and still owe almost as much as they owed on day one.
Like I said before, past payments would get credited to their accounts. Once that amount is equal to the borrowed amount + 5%, the loan is considered paid in full, and closed out.
Anything they’ve paid OVER the borrowed amount + 5% would be returned to the borrower.
The overpayments — which only show up when the loan is predatory and set up that way for the sole purpose of milking a ridiculous sum of money from the American people, above and beyond what the government loaned them — would be the government’s only expense. Beyond that, all they lose is money that doesn’t exist yet, because interest is imaginary until someone pays it. Charging interest doesn’t make interest real. Paying it does.
That way everyone pays what they borrow, plus reasonable interest. And the people who have been the most affected by student loans from 20 or 10 or 5 years ago will…
