UPDATE:
The piece below, very briefly, very “broad-brush” and perhaps even frivolously surveys the spectrum of reactions to President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
In “Fact-checking 6 Criticisms of Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan,” TIME gives the subject much better consideration in the form of a fact check with emphasis on the “most prominent criticisms against the plan,” the lion’s share of which have come from the right.
Here they are:
1. It’s a bailout for the rich
2. It will make inflation worse and lead colleges to hike tuition
3. It’s not fair
4. It doesn’t address the root cause of the problem
5. It still leaves Black borrowers with disproportionately more debt
6. It’s an abuse of executive power
Read the full report HERE.
Original Post:
A 2020 UC Berkeley study surveying more than 2,500 people in the United States and China about their emotional responses to thousands of songs, found that the responses can be mapped into 13 key emotions including joy, scariness, triumph, annoyance, anxiety, defiance – even eroticism.
Perhaps with exception of the latter — eroticism — the responses pretty well resemble the cacophony of reactions to President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
It has been attacked from the right, from the left, from the center — from every “witch” way.
It has been called unfair, too much, not enough, it goes too far, it doesn’t go far enough, “a slap in the face to working Americans,” “out of touch” and “not out of touch,” a reason to celebrate, a reason to mourn, American politics as usual, foresighted, shortsighted…
Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell called it “student loan socialism…a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college,” according to TIME, which adds:
When McConnell graduated from the University of Louisville in 1964, annual tuition cost $330 (or roughly $2,500 when adjusted for inflation); today, it costs more than $12,000, a 380% increase.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the policy a “debt transfer scam.” Again, TIME: “When [McCarthy] graduated from California State University, Bakersfield in 1989, tuition was less than $800; today, it’s more than $7,500, a 400% increase when adjusted for inflation.”
And, of course, DeSantis had to insert his two cents’ worth of anti-LGBTQ opinion proclaiming: “It’s very unfair to have a truck driver have to pay back a loan for somebody that got like a PhD in gender studies…That’s not fair. That’s not right.”
I am reminded of the well-worn saying, adapted by President Lincoln: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Which, in turn, reminds me of another quote. This one by the U.S. Navy’s first (Hispanic) full admiral, who — during the battle of Mobile Bay in 1864 — ordered “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!” leading to his flotilla’s victory.
Sometimes, Mr. Biden, “A man ought’a do what he thinks is best.”
I believe John Wayne said this.
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* Babel 2001 is a sculptural installation made from hundreds of analogue radios tuned to a multitude of different stations. The radios compete with each other and create a cacophony of low, continuous sound…
