Stop Voting for Intentions; Vote for Results

First, the lies.

Debts are actually forgiven every day, in negotiations between parties on private contracts. Debts are also actually canceled by bankruptcy courts, which decide that certain creditors of insolvent debtors will be paid something, and others will have to write off losses for debts that the bankrupt debtors will not repay. In both instances, the "forgiven" or "canceled" debt will not be repaid. By anyone.

Biden is neither "canceling" nor "forgiving" debts; he is transferring those debts to other people who never entered into those contracts, never borrowed or promised to repay the money, and never received the benefits (such as they were) that the borrowers purportedly did. But they will be forced to repay other people's debts in the form of higher taxes.

Biden calls this "debt cancellation" or "debt forgiveness," and the media goes along with it, because it sounds nice. Ply the public's emotions with sad stories of people saddled with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and then announce, "I am forgiving those debts."

If Biden were actually telling banks that they were not going to receive the billions of dollars they are owed, they'd be screaming bloody murder. But they know he's passing these debts along to the American taxpayer. Now instead of suing delinquent borrowers, they can sit back and let the IRS do all the work.

Supporters love to point out that college tuition has outpaced inflation for decades. And it has. Tuition increased on average 180% just between 1980 and 2020. It has consistently risen at twice the inflation rate. The average college tuition has increased more than 400% since 1985. And at some private universities (like Harvard, for example), tuition and room and board have increased by much more -- in some cases, close to 1,000%.

One of the biggest factors contributing to these exploding costs was the push for widely available student loans. When families had to pay costs out of pocket, they were far less likely to choose colleges they could not afford. The advent of student loans distorted the market. Colleges and universities could increase tuition and fees and encourage families to borrow the money and repay it later. But that means principal plus interest, and there is no guarantee a degree obtained with debt will produce income sufficient to repay it. Nor are most 18-year-olds thinking about the other expenses they'll have later: car payments, rent, a mortgage, utilities, children.

Biden's loan "forgiveness" is this kind of wrongheaded policy on steroids. Colleges will be incentivized to increase costs if they know the government is passing those costs along to taxpayers. Ask yourself: What cars would people purchase if they were told the government would pay for the loan? What would happen if the government announced that taxpayers would be forced to pay everyone's grocery bills?

Biden's student loan policies are inflating a bubble. And bubbles burst.

Americans need to stop being swayed by politicians' protestations about their good intentions and start looking at the results of flawed policies. If we do not, we are just as culpable for the inevitable disasters those policies produce.

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To find out more about Laura Hollis and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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