On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation program is “too politically designed, not economically designed.” And the measure is Democrats “feeding their base. And part of their base happens to be upscale people.”
Brooks said, “[I]f you wanted to give that $20,000 debt forgiveness to kids who had Pell Grants, then I’d be on board for that. The community of college graduates or even those holding student debt is very diverse. Some of it really is poor kids who are first generation. They did what we wanted them to do. Take a chance, invest in yourself, and then something — life happened and they didn’t graduate. So, they’ve got debt and no degree, not really much earning potential. And forgiving those debts totally makes sense to me. Forgiving the debt of somebody who comes from a family making $249,000 makes no sense at all to me. And this is just too big, too broad, too politically designed, not economically designed.”
He added, “And it underlines a problem with the Democratic Party, that education is the primary — or a primary divide in this country, with college-educated people overwhelmingly leaning Democrat[ic]…and so, the Democrats have become really good at feeding their base. And part of their base happens to be upscale people. And they do it by trying to defend the state and local tax deduction. They do it with measures like this. They do with zoning regulations. And you just can’t redistribute money and power upwards without paying a price from high school and middle-class folks somewhere down the line.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
