The temptation to add the label “historic” to a political move is often suspect, but the event described here may one day be classified as a crossroads in the history of American politics. It might be possible to say of him that through him the ruling Democratic Party granted an electoral divorce to the white working class.
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On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed ato an order, canceling part of the obligations of students to the federal government for their higher studies. He thereby removed 300 billion dollars from the shoulders of students in the next ten years, and of course also deleted 300 billion from the government’s future revenue column. (The White House disputes these amounts. Administration sources put the amount at $240 billion.)
Specifically, $10,000 will be offset from the annual debt of those who earn less than $125,000 a year. $20,000 will be offset from the debts of students, current or past, who benefited from a special government loan for the indigent.
The Wharton School of Business Administration at the University of Pennsylvania estimates that 70% of the beneficiaries of the offset are in the top six tenths of America’s income. Surveys show that 40% of Americans have not received any higher education. This includes professionals without which a normal life would not be possible, such as plumbers , electricians and builders.This means that the vast majority of blue-collar workers will not benefit from debt relief, even though the taxes they pay will help pay.
“I understand that not everything I announce today will make you all equally happy,” Biden declared during the signing of the order, last week, “but I believe my plan is fair and responsible.”
Trump likes the “undereducated”
The dangers involved can be exposed by listening not only to declared political opponents, but to members of the president’s party. Thunderous condemnation came, for example, from Jim Ryan, a Democratic Congressman from Ohio, who is trying to be elected to the Senate.
Ohio, the seventh largest state in the United States, is in the heart of the Midwest, in America’s historic industrial center. Ryan protests financial aid to “six-figure earners” while “millions of Ohioans without college degrees work just as hard to provide for their families.” “.
Since 2016, Ohio has verified the axiom that support for Donald Trump increases as formal education declines. Trump himself once declared, “How much I love the undereducated.” They returned love to his lap. Thanks to them, he became his party’s candidate for president, and thanks to them he beat Hillary Clinton by a tiny margin, in key states in the Midwest, which tipped the scales in his favor (even though he lost in the national number of votes).
Their vote for Trump was an act of protest against the “elites”, holders of academic degrees from elite universities, who claimed expertise and leadership. The reduction of the debt burden of the elites at the expense of the blue-collar workers is an almost cartoonish summary of what has been going on in American society for the past 25 years or more: the feeling of deprivation and resentment of a significant part of the population, who feel that they have no share and inheritance in America’s prosperity.
Phenomenal costs: heavy financial handcuffs
But the cartoon is not accurate. The beneficiaries of the offset do not belong only to the “elites”. 43 million Americans share a debt of 1.6 trillion (1,600 billion) dollars to the federal government for their higher education. The annual payment to repay this debt is equal to the interest that the US pays on all its debts (thebalance.com).
The costs of higher education in the United States are phenomenal. Although many institutions offer considerable concessions, even to children of established families, most are characterized by a lack of generosity. A Wall Street Journal guide from the beginning of the year shows that students are required to pay between $18,000 and $53,000 a year at prestigious private universities, but not necessarily the most elite. One college in New York charges an average annual tuition of $28,600 to the next student from a family whose annual income is $30,000. This student is thrown into the job market with heavy financial handcuffs on his hands.
The results can be far-reaching, not only because of the lack of cash, but because of the long-term damage to the graduate’s credit rating. 2018 data from the central bank showed that approximately one in five young Americans (18 to 29 years old) are unable to meet the repayment terms of their debt. The share of blacks and Hispanics is particularly large (25%) compared to whites (9%).
A senior Democrat tells The Washington Post that President Biden went back and postponed the decision because of his anxiety about the reaction of the working class. He finally decided in favor of the offset, and passionately defended it in a speech at the White House, albeit incorrectly because he and his advisers concluded that the political benefits outweighed the risks.
“Foil on the inflation fire”
A recent public opinion poll shows that the disappointment with the Biden presidency among young people is particularly severe. He fell in all the polls in the last year, but only 33% of the young people, aged 18 to 29, trust his conduct. This survey preceded the offsetting of the debts. It is likely that the offset announcement has changed, or will change, the opinion of some of the young people. Such a change might convince them to vote in November, in favor of the Democratic Party’s slim chances of protecting its tiny majority in Congress.
As such, a disproportionate number of blacks received loans from the federal government for their education. In their case the loans were even larger, and they would benefit from an annual offset of $20,000. These are lifetime amounts, especially at a time of financial difficulties. Electoral payoff is possible here as well.
The criticism of the president is that he “poured oil on the inflation fire”. Interestingly, these words came from the throat of Jason Foreman, who was Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser in the White House. There is probably not one word in the political dictionary that scares the voters more than “inflation”. Soon we will see if the fear is greater than the good knowledge.
The Bible and forgiveness of debts: “make a bed” – or “a wicked borrower”?
In the influential Christian right, which usually supports a large majority in the Republican Party, a debate over student debt forgiveness has taken on a theological character in recent days, with quotations and counter-quotes from the Bible.
In social media it was possible to find quotes, in English of course, from a number of ‘things’, “At the end of seven years, make a shemita”. Opponents of forgiveness quoted from Psalm 37 in the book of Psalms, “The wicked borrows, and will not repay.”
Dr. Albert Mohler, head of the Academy of the Southern Baptist Church, America’s largest Protestant denomination, preached with considerable excitement against the “financial, constitutional and moral disaster,” accusing President Biden of “plunging America into national calamity” through debt relief. , and behaves as if he were a “tsar”. But the next day he explained, in answer to the questions of his followers, that he had no intention of forcing his opinion on “the conscience of Christians”, and he advised them to discuss the matter with other members of their communities.
It seems clear that this influential theologian came to a twofold conclusion: (1) the Holy Scriptures do not provide an unequivocal answer; (2) It is difficult to suppose that even devout Christians will reject the benevolence of the federal government, even if they oppose it and desire its downfall.
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