The White House’s Plan to Cancel Student Loan Debt Will Cost—Who Cares? Money Is Made Up and We Spend Twice That Much on the Military Every Year

“The White House’s plan to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of American borrowers will cost roughly $400 billion over 10 years.”
— The Washington Post

According to a new estimate released by Congress, the White House’s plan to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of American borrowers will cost approximately—who cares? Money is made up and we spend twice as much on the military every year.

To be clear: that’s a rough estimate.

The appraisal is highly concerning, as it represents a number that—like so many numbers—is part of a pretend financial system in which way larger numbers are spent annually on bombs so, dear lord, what the hell are we even talking about here?

Approximately.

To be clear, this number does not include other untapped expenditures like universal healthcare, which is growing in popularity but, if enacted, would likely cost upwards of—seriously, who gives a shit? Just sell some fighter jets and let everyone have free healthcare.

Give or take.

The main problem, as many others before me have pointed out, is that spending for spending’s sake can topple an economy, so we must be patient and immediately tax the rich at one-hundred-goddamn percent and re-fucking-distribute their blood-soaked money.

Just, you know, for starters.

Beyond the reported cost of canceling student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans, I also need to point out that doing so is an insult to those of us who have worked hard to pay off our own student debts with the jobs and money we absolutely lucked into because class mobility has zero to do with imagined merit and one-hundred-fucking percent to do with a combination of generational wealth, gender, race, and, importantly, complete goddamn chance.

That’s generally speaking, of course.

At the end of the day, the White House can strut around and make as many promises as it wants, but this spending decision should be left up to the American people—the ones who are being held captive by the corporate elite and reactive populists who refuse to concede even one inch of their inhumanity and instead feed everyone bullshit like “this plan will cost too much money” when it’s actually not that much money at all.

Or, you know, something like that.