“The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed deeply skeptical on Tuesday of the legality of the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt, heightening the prospect that the justices would thwart efforts to forgive the loans of tens of millions of borrowers.” — New York Times
Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court,
As I stand before you today, I need to make one thing absolutely clear: I’m a realist. I call things as I see them. And I just have to ask—how can we afford to bail out student loan borrowers when we can barely afford to bail out Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, Bear Stearns, the entire airline industry, General Motors, Chrysler, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Savings & Loan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and then the entire airline industry for a second time? I just don’t see how we can swing it.
Besides, we recently forgave PPP loans for Tom Brady, Khloe Kardashian, and Jared Kushner—three completely average Americans. How many more run-of-the-mill citizens do we need to help? For God’s sake, when will it be enough?
Look: I care about people. I do. But people aren’t people. Corporations are people. And so when I say I care about people, what I mean is that I care about corporations, not people. Instead of bailing out American people, we need to save our money for the next time we need to bail out American corporations. Because American corporations are the real American people. Does that make sense?
In any case, I just don’t see how we can pay for student loan forgiveness when we’re on a very strict budget of spending trillions of dollars every year forever with no end in sight. It seems like we’d be turning a responsible, manageable situation into total and utter disaster. Heck, I think I speak for everyone when I say that money is completely made up, and we can add more of it at any time—except when it comes to helping people.
Now, I predict the defense will argue that student loan forgiveness is just a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of our spending. But I’m here to tell you that our bucket is already full to the brim. What’s it full of? Water. Where’s the water from? Eastern Ohio. And it’s contaminated. And they’re calling a hearing. This means at some point soon, we’re going need to use every penny we’ve got to bail out an entire rail company.
That’s right, a company. If you were listening earlier, that means a person. And I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let a person drown in potential debt—unless, of course, that person is a literal person.