The idea that President Biden shouldn’t cancel student loan debt because it wouldn’t be fair to people who already paid their loans off is how a kindergartner thinks about fairness. Should nobody get the COVID vaccine because other people died of COVID? Grow up!
Here in the adult world, a student loan is nothing more than a contract between two parties who can agree to change the terms at any time. It's a piece of paper. If people with student loan debts and the federal government want to forgive the debt, that is their right. No third party has standing to complain.
"Oh but the taxpayers will foot the bill," some people will say, but again, here the complainers have the worldview of a toddler. We don't live in a democracy of taxpayers. We actually live in a constitutional republic of elected representatives. Millions of people holding unmanageable and often predatory student loans collectively lobbied the winner of the election, Joe Biden, to support loan forgiveness. Donald Trump is also a supporter of changing the terms of the loans.
It's not our fault some people didn't think of participating in collective action that began during the Obama administration and grew from there. They could have joined us years ago. Maybe we'd have won relief sooner.
The world has changed. Both parties are now clearly open to jubilee—a Judeo-Christian event long abandoned in a world wracked and ruined by greed and resentment. We are a nation founded on those forgotten values, we're told. We must hold Biden to his word on forgiveness. We will accept any amount through executive order, just as we have also accepted Trump's current change to our loan terms this year. We will continue to demand further legislative action to permanently cancel all the debts.
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Echola is a former Forum Reader's Board member living in Fargo.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.
