Knick-knack wealth redistribution is back!
In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama infamously told Samuel Joseph “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher that he believed, “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” It cemented in many Americans’ minds that Obama and the Democratic Party were quickly becoming socialist.
Flash forward 14 years, and Obama’s vice president announced one of the largest wealth redistribution plans ever via a massive college debt forgiveness plan. This time, working-class individuals like “Joe the Plumber” will be paying for millions of college graduates’ degrees.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden unveiled a plan to cancel $10,000 in student loans per borrower earning under $125,000, as well as $20,000 per borrower who attended college on Pell grants.
White House officials had been weighing the move for months and landed on the $10,000 figure, according to a report from CNN, some Democratic lawmakers have supported canceling up to $50,000 per borrower.
In total, the plan will likely cost more than $300 billion.
Of course, the loans are not just canceled, that debt is simply transferred to the American taxpayer.
The Americans hurt most by this are those who never went to college, let alone took out college loans to attend.
Those are individuals like the real Joe the Plumber. He has had a series of jobs throughout his career and never attended college.
The “plumber” part of his moniker is more of a nickname but represents thousands of workers across the United States.
The average plumber makes somewhere north of $56,000 per year. That same tradesman likely has zero college debt.
The average college graduate degree holder between the ages of 25 and 34 earns $59,600. The average student debt stands between $20,000 and $24,999.
Yet, under Biden’s bailout, the plumber is picking up the university yuppie’s slack. Countless other craftsmen and women are too.
As Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” once said, “I know guys who worked hard to get a construction operation running. Some had to take out a loan on a big old diesel truck. Why would we forgive the cost of a degree but not the cost of a lease payment?”
There are arguments to be made for canceling student debt and how to do it justly.
Some — like President Ronald Reagan’s favorite economist George Gilder — believe it should be paid off by taxing university endowments. The theory argues that the university has committed massive fraud against entire generations of Americans. Thus, morally the colleges should be the ones who foot the bill. Then, the federal government should get out of the college loan business altogether.
That is not what happened under Biden’s plan. It does not seem he is at all interested in anything like that. Instead, he has offered a temporary “solution” while placing the burden on Americans who aren’t responsible for the problem.
Right before the midterms, the president is launching a scheme to pay off his voters with money taken off the backs of the blue-collar class he professes to love.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.