Holy Cringe: No, Elizabeth Warren, Student Debt is Not a ‘Gender Justice’ Issue
Holy Cringe: No, Elizabeth Warren, Student Debt is Not a ‘Gender Justice’ Issue
Today’s a day that ends in y, so Elizabeth Warren is posting cringe again.
“Women owe over two-thirds of student debt,” the Massachusetts Democrat tweeted Thursday. “Canceling student debt would help give millions of women a fair shot at starting a business, saving for a home, and pursuing their dreams. Student debt is a gender justice issue. It’s time for [President Biden] to act.”
Suffice it to say that I find this attempt to put woke bubble wrap around a terrible policy proposal utterly unconvincing.
https://twitter.com/brad_polumbo/status/1507042012834447366
It’s smart (if deeply disingenuous) rhetoric, though. After all, if “canceling” student debt becomes an issue of “gender justice,” then you can accuse anyone who disagrees with your plan to waste tax dollars of being sexist.
First, let’s clear the air.
Women do hold more student debt than men. But that’s not because of sexism. It’s because more women now go to college than men! It only stands to reason, then, that they would hold more student debt.
So, Warren’s attempt to make student debt a “gender justice” issue is patently absurd. She most likely knows, however, that the mainstream media and progressive Left will simply parrot this narrative, because questioning claims to victimhood is now beyond the pale among the woke elite.
The senator’s new rhetorical twist is also most likely an attempt to distract from the very legitimate arguments against “canceling” student debt.
After all, student debt cancellation really means forcing all taxpayers—even the many who didn’t go to college—to eat the loss. The benefits flow almost exclusively to college graduates, but the tax burden is in part borne by the working class.
So, student debt cancelation ironically isn’t “progressive” at all. It’s widely acknowledged as a “regressive” policy, which means it asks the poor and working class to pay more than their fair share. Indeed, a University of Chicago study found that the top 20% of income earners would see six times more benefit from canceling student debt than the bottom 20%. And recent analysis found that the ongoing “pause” in student loan payments mostly benefits doctors and lawyers.
Not only that, but canceling student debt could actually lead to tuition prices increasing.
Why? Well, colleges and universities are only able to charge such obscenely high rates because the federal government subsidizes student loans.
"Canceling" student debt would further extend a blank taxpayer check to these schools—allowing them to continue offering degrees that are decreasing in value while also charging more for them. (They could never get away with all this in an actual competitive, free market).
Ultimately, Senator Warren’s invocation of “gender justice” is a see-through attempt to cover up the fact that the policy she’s pushing for is an utterly unnecessary taxpayer bailout for affluent, Democratic-leaning voters.