 Bernie Sanders has pretty much led the charge when it comes to making public colleges and universities tuition-free and I've always commended him for that however with that being said even if you make public colleges and universities tuition-free That doesn't ameliorate the crisis that already unfolded like there's currently 45 million people that have more than 1.5 trillion in total student loan debt So you've got to do something more for those people and previously his plan in my view Wasn't good enough like it was really milk toast He wanted to cap the repayments to 10 12 percent something along those lines And I've always tried to encourage him to go further But thankfully he listened to me. He listened to all of us who have been begging him To take things to the next level He has a plan now that is phenomenal for student loan debt. He's going to cancel all of it full stop We will make a full and complete education A human right in america to which all of our people are entitled This means making public colleges universities And hbcu's tuition free and debt free By tripling the work study programs expanding Pell grants and other financial incentives Today we are entering a proposal Which will allow every person in this country to get all of the education that they need to live out their dreams Because they are americans Further in the wealthiest country in the history of the world It is simply not acceptable that our younger generation through no fault of their own Will have a lower standard of living than their parents More debt lower wages and less likelihood of owning their own homes That is why this proposal Completely eliminates student debt in this country and ends the absurdity Of sentencing an entire generation the millennial generation To a lifetime of debt for the crime of doing the right thing And that is going out and getting a higher education 10 years ago The united states government bailed out wall street After their greed their recklessness and their illegal behavior Drove us into the worst recession in modern history Today the major wall street banks are larger than ever Their profits are soaring and their ceo's receive huge compensation packages Our proposal which cost 2.2 trillion over 10 years Will be fully paid for by a tax on wall street speculation Similar to what exists in dozens of countries around the world The american people bailed out wall street Now it is time for wall street to come to the aid of a middle class of this country Okay, this is proof that bernie sanders strategically speaking He knows what he's doing because when elizabeth warren announced that she'd be canceling some student loan debt What I said in the video when I talked about that was that this was a phenomenal plan However, since elizabeth warren isn't in favor of canceling all student loan debt She left him enough room to where he can swoop in and still do better than her And this is what I said if i'm even considering elizabeth warren's plan If I were elizabeth warren I'd say we're gonna cancel 100% of student loan debt that 1.5 trillion We're deleting all of it because you won't actually get that But when you negotiate you'll negotiate down to something that she's actually aiming for so I would go bolder And elizabeth warren just outflanked bernie from the left But she left him enough room to where he can still top her on this particular issue and he did just that so This tells me that bernie sanders political instincts are absolutely on point and I am So glad because think about this If you had your student loan debt cancelled What would that mean for you like for me? This would be literally life changing For so many people who can't buy cars. They can't buy houses. This would change their lives So I'm 100 on board And what I want you all to do is encourage your representative to co-sponsor this legislation in the house because bernie sanders teamed up With uh progressives such as ilhan omar who is the sponsor of this bill in the house A primal ajai paul ocasio-cortez and they're leading the charge But what we need to do now as progressives is do the same thing that we did when it comes to medicare for all We need to get other lawmakers to get on board with this But now what I want to do is I want to talk about the response to this because the counter arguments that I've seen Are hilarious like I'm genuinely enjoying them They're pure gold because it's evident to me that nobody knows how the fuck to attack this plan without sounding like elitist pricks And I'm living for it. So for example wall street defense force otherwise known as third way Which is the wall street funded wing of the democratic party. They tweeted this out free college for all is Regressive blanket debt forgiveness could actually increase inequality Sure, jam. Now when you look at the ratio here, you'll see that people absolutely We're just shredding third way because this is nonsense They're literally trying to convince you that this is going to do the opposite of what it's supposed to do So their argument if we accept their logic for a moment is that this is going to increase income and wealth inequality Now I know what you're thinking How can we even accept that logic because it doesn't make sense? I hear you but just hear me out for a second. Let's say we believe Their nonsensical attack on this how on earth could this possibly Lead to inequality. Well, you see it simple If you cancel all student loan debt Including the student loan debt of rich people Then this is another handout in the same way that Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich Was a brazen handout to the rich So if you cancel everyone's debt if you just blanket forgive all student loans including the loans of rich people Then what do you think that's going to do? That's going to really help rich people as well as poor people And I found a tweet that I think is pretty sympathetic to this line of thinking This is from Amy Vanderpool who says I don't want to pay off student loan debt for rich people who can afford it We should be selective in solving this problem. That is the only way to grow the middle class Warren's plan has a way to do that. Bernie's does not grow So if you accept that line of thinking then the idea is well, you know, maybe we should go with a more incrementalist approach here If we're gonna forgive student loan debt, maybe we should make it a means tested program Maybe we should go with Elizabeth Warren's plan because I don't think it's right for rich people to get any more handouts Except there's one flaw with that line of thinking If you're rich You don't need to take out a student loan. Why would you take out a loan if you don't need it when you know you'd have to pay interest? See the problem is this doesn't make sense because rich people don't get student loans as Benjamin Dixon puts it This is almost as stupid as people being against increasing the minimum wage to 15 Because it's going to increase the price of a big mac rich people don't take out loans And the price of big macs have gone up even when wages didn't exactly It's not a handout for the rich because rich people don't need student loans So that line of thinking Is flawed and quite frankly, it's idiotic So that was the first counter argument that I came across You know, this helps rich people and that's bad. So we shouldn't do it. So what is counter argument number two? Well, it's basically the opposite. We shouldn't do this because it hurts the rich And that's bad not making this up as this tweet from bloomberg points out Wall Street says Bernie sander's student loan debt plan could bring more pain for investors through higher fees Or lower returns God damn right So rich investors on wall street Would subsequently get less money in the event we canceled student loan debt Yeah, um Forgive me for uh, not really caring But they care and they're pretty broken up about this. In fact, here at the humanist report We have obtained exclusive footage of the rich reacting to Bernie sander's plan Yeah, so i'm not going to really explore this argument too much Because if it is true that cancelling student loan debt is a zero sum game and you know by doing that Poor americans gained something and rich americans lose something then um good But moving on there's one last argument that I want to touch on here And this is the what about me argument as I like to call it because if you're someone who paid off your student debt You you know, you accumulated a lot of debt through student loans, but you worked hard enough and you paid it off What about you? I mean we can all kind of empathize with this I know the people who bought fallout 76 last year probably felt buyer remorse when just weeks later on black friday It went on sale for 50 off and even then you know It was still too much money because it was a broken buggy piece of shit and it still is But the question is is this unfair to people who paid off their student loans? Well, let's hear from someone who actually did work really hard to pay off their student loan debt This is an op-ed from vox written by david goldstein and he explains I graduated college in 1985 with $18,000 in student loans about $42,500 in 2019 dollars And then diligently paid them off over the next 10 years as a father I saved enough for my daughter's education to assure that she could graduate college 100 dead free I'm not rich. I didn't always make the best financial choices But I worked hard played by the rules and made good on my debts I could be the poster child for those claiming student loan forgiveness is quote-unquote unfair But you know what's really unfair the huge advantage. I enjoyed Graduating into the 1985 job market. I graduated with a ba in history Not the most valuable field of study when it comes to job qualifications But when I entered the job market in 1985 Employers were eager to hire smart kids from good universities. Whatever their degree I got the first and only job I applied for a cushy tech job I knew absolutely nothing about at a starting salary of $35,000 per year. That's 82,000 in today's money So let's just pause right there contrast that job market with today's job market If you just graduated college the odds of you landing a good paying job on your first try Almost impossible. It's unfathomable, right? And even if you did land a good job, you were lucky enough to get a job Because you have a degree You still wouldn't be able to pay off your student loan debt that quickly You'd still have it until the day you died because You need more student loans because the cost of tuition has skyrocketed Completely different economies when this person was young That was a different era economically speaking where you could graduate pay off your debt relatively quickly And get a job and it's easier to pay off debt if you could find a good paying job But these days kids graduate college and they have to work for uber They get jobs at starbucks because there's just not enough jobs that are good paying to go to go around You end up in the service industry So the economy is different, but he also goes through a little bit more As to why it's not unfair to cancel student loan debt of people today He states whenever an old white guy like me remind you that I worked my way through college Remind them that in the 1981 to 1982 academic year The average in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public college or university was just $909 back when the federal minimum wage was $3.35 an hour That means I could have paid for my entire freshman year tuition and fees with less than seven weeks of full-time minimum wage work At just about any shitty summer job, but over the past four decades Average public university tuition and fees have increased more than 11 fold to $10,230 a year While the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has barely doubled. So why have public universities gotten so expensive? It's not what you probably think Adjusted for inflation the cost of educating students at public universities has actually increased only modestly Rather, it's the price that's gone through the roof Thanks in large part to a massive shift in costs from taxpayers to students According to the center on budget and policy priorities Student tuition as a share of total spending at our nation's public colleges and universities rose from 24 percent In 1988 to 46 percent in 2015 and in some states this shift in costs has been far worse In my adopted state of washington once home to one of the most affordable public university systems in the nation The funding split dramatically flipped from 70 state 30 tuition in 1991 to 30 state 70 tuition by 2013 Boomers like me have pulled up the ladder behind us after being educated largely at taxpayer expense No wonder young people have piled up more than 1.5 trillion in student debt So yes as a late wave boomer with absolutely nothing to gain from sanders or warrants plans I enthusiastically support both student loan debt forgiveness and debt free college Not just because it would be damn good for the economy But giving a whole generation settled by debt more freedom to build up savings by homes and contribute to the economy But because I believe in the golden rule give unto future generations the same opportunities and privileges My generation enjoyed so that's from someone who paid off his student debt Who is rejecting this idea that it is unfair To forgive all the student loan debt of people who currently have it But let's say hypothetically speaking you're a millennial And you worked really hard and you just paid off your student loan debt last week and here You're seeing stories about how bernie sanders wants to cancel student loan debt First of all by our student loan debt being cancelled that doesn't necessarily mean That we gained something at your expense all that sanders is doing here Is helping us Out of a ditch. He's giving us a hand and even if bernie sanders helps us out of that ditch You're still going to be better off than all of us if that's really what you care about Which you shouldn't care about because human empathy should be our number one concern But I mean if you were lucky enough to pay off your student loan debt You're already better off than people who currently have student loan debt It's like me saying well, you know what I had to accumulate all of this student loan debt So my niece as a nephew's Shouldn't get free college Because I didn't get it That's not the way that society functions by Them getting their debt cancelled you don't lose anything In fact, you gain something because that increases purchasing power of people who are burdened by debt That stimulates the entire economy. Everyone benefits from it But even if this argument isn't persuasive to you Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't do it even if you think it's unfair just because You think it's unfair doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it Don't you think that we should be helping people? I mean if you're angered at this But didn't say anything when we bailed out wall street think about your priorities So there's really no persuasive argument against student loan debt cancellation. However, I absolutely love Watching people try to make it and then fumble face plant, you know, just Hilariously because this is something that would be a benefit to everyone Not just those of you know the beneficiaries of student loan debt cancellation This would benefit the aggregate economy which helps all of us