Yesterday afternoon, Joe Biden visited Wisconsin and announced a new student loan bailout program, “a proposal that would cancel at least some debt” for more than 30 million borrowers.
Then, last night, Alexandria Ocasion-Cortez joined Stephen Colbert on the Late Show to discuss the move, applauding Biden’s gift of “hope” for college graduates who will now have the opportunity to… “travel abroad” on trips they would have been otherwise unable to afford if they were held to the original stipulations of the loan.
By passing the debt onto people who didn’t incur it—er, I mean, by implementing loan “forgiveness,” Biden is buying votes—er, I mean, giving kids the chance to gallivant across Europe or find themselves in Bali, on Instagram-worthy trips. What benevolence!
Here’s what AOC said, via Breitbart News:
‘And this is huge, this is — people getting the student loan forgiveness, their student loans canceled, it means that it’s hope to buy a house or have a kid or travel abroad or maybe even go back to school and pursue a career that maybe they otherwise wouldn’t have. One of the reasons that’s not me now is because I didn’t feel like I’d be able to afford medical school. And so, hopefully, someone else who’s at an ISEF competition somewhere will be able to do that because of this.’
Maybe even “go back to school” to incur more debt on the taxpayers’ behalf? Dear heavens—please, no! (And dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks AOC didn’t go to medical school because it was only a matter of dollars and cents? Give me a break. If medical schools still admitted students based only on intellectual capability, AOC would have no chance—but since that’s not the case, as a progressive daughter of immigrants, she would have beena shoe-in.)
Because, the government handing people money that somebody else earned is a good investment, right?
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? Does anyone remember Los Angeles’s “grand experiment” in which the city doled out a Universal Basic Income of $1,000 to 3,200 people over the course of a year? (That little debacle added at least $38.4 million to the California debt, which is then covered by federal dollars from people living in all the other states, like me, not voting for this garbage.) Journalists for the very progressive The Nation “followed four participants throughout the duration of the program” to find out how things turned out; last year, the magazine published what was a puff piece for the UBI program, but contained therein was the reality of grand welfare schemes. One mother planned to spend her funds like this:
She was going to take Jace to Legoland and Harlee to Sesame Street Place; she’d written down the ticket prices months in advance in the new financial planner that she carried in her purse. She was going to buy her son Pokémon cards and her daughter a doll house.
Okay, so instead of wise investments, or thriftiness to foster financial security, she squandered it on toys and corporate adventure parks. Sounds about right.
Another couple, Vaughan and Kameko, wanting to “live for the moment” blew through the cash living the high-life:
When the money comes in, they spend it, despite knowing that in half a year the payments will stop. They go bowling; they put gas in the car and drive to the airport just to watch planes landing. They’re pondering whether they can afford a couple of nights in Las Vegas at Circus Circus. They’ve gone out to a nearby oceanfront pier and bought tray upon tray of seafood. They took a tour of an old battleship. They’re looking forward to renting bikes at Dockweiler Beach one weekend. Vaughan’s planning a half-day open-ocean fishing trip with some buddies.
Oh, and they had a trip to Disneyland planned too.
What about the cash handouts in D.C. under Mayor Bowser? Remember this?
DC mom given $10,800 taxpayer-funded lump sum as part of scheme to help poor families spends $6,000 on luxury trip to MIAMI and 15 vacation outfits for her three kids
‘I wanted to blow it. I wanted to have fun,’ she said. The spending spree included 15 brand new outfits for her kids - one for each child for each day of the vacation - and a $180 haircut to make her not ‘look like a working, stressed mom.’
Joined by her children’s father, they also splashed out on luxury amenities including steak dinners, new gadgets and toys for her kids, and a boat tour past Miami’s most expensive mansions.
Miller [the mom] justified the extravagance by saying she hoped to inspire her children and teach them that if they work hard they too may be able to afford a Miami mansion.
(These behaviors/attitudes are exactly why these people are poor.)
As AOC also noted, she won’t be benefitting from the bailout, but “that’s okay” because she’ll “take the knock if that means people can get relief.”
Newsflash, the people paying for it don’t get the relief, but who cares about them.
Sickening, right?
Image: DonkeyHotey, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.
