They Really, Really, Honestly, Sincerely Don't Get It. (Unless They're Hypocrites, Dishonest, or Both)

Reps/cons are mobilized against student loan forgiveness.  And I agree with them.  For one thing, as with "health care," how to retire the unrepaid amount is not the right question.  The question is why it -- "health care" or higher education -- is so expensive.  If either one was priced as it should be, there would be no crushing loans, nor the defaults and bankruptcies that follow them.  

Also, if you borrow money, then you agree to pay it back.  So, pay it back.  If you can.  And the "if you can" part means that repayment, especially of debts of these sizes, ought to be means tested.  Some people with a level of debt can afford to repay it.  So, they should.  That's what they agreed to do when they requested and accepted the money.

For these kinds of reasons, Reps/cons are not wrong, at least in part, to resist blanket debt forgiveness.  But now, at the same exact time, they're talking about reducing things like Social Security and Medicare benefits.  There are several things wrong with this line of thinking.  For one thing, the Social Security Administration's revenue is not part of the general federal coffer.  It's a separate fund.  Reducing Social Security, for example, does nothing for, let's say, the deficit.

Second, anyone should look at Social Security the same way they might look at something like student loans.  In the latter, let's say I borrow money to go to college or graduate school.  I requested and took the money, and I'm expected to pay it back.  With interest.  That's what I agreed to do.  Social Security works the other way around.  I give the government (SSA) money over the course of my working life, and the government is supposed to return it to me, if I live long enough.  So, return it.  With whatever increase should apply to the fact that the government has been holding onto it for decades.  Don't short me.  I'm expected to repay my debts, and the government is not expected to repay its debts?  Who came up with that philosophy?

But there's an elephant in the room.  These conversations are about the federal deficit, and it's phony and unnecessary.  We -- Reps/cons in particular -- complain bitterly about the deficit (although Reps/cons are selective about when they complain, and specifically about who's in office when they decide we have a horrible problem), but we cause the deficit by spending more than we have.  It's not easy to spend less, but it's very easy to have more.  Taxes need to be raised.  Reagan should not have lowered them, unless he was going to reduce government-funded services, which he didn't.  W/Cheney were completely out of their minds by overturning a manageable budget with an unnecessary tax reduction, and totally insanely starting some meaningless and invented war on a reduced budget.  No one does that.  No one ever has.  It can't be done.  It causes a very high deficit, which is what Reps/cons now complain about, even though they don't complain about what caused the deficit.  And after the deficit got higher, because Obama didn't raise taxes, Trump lowered them again.  This is nonsensical.  It's grossly irrational.  And the people who are now complaining about the deficit, and want to lower it by some means that won't lower it, need to be in "rubber rooms."