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Obama Is Forgiving the Student Loans of Nearly 400,000 Permanently Disabled People (marketwatch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers will now have an easier path to getting their loans discharged, the Obama administration has announced. The Department of Education will send letters to 387,000 people they've identified as being eligible for a total and permanent disability discharge, a designation that allows federal student loan borrowers who can't work because of a disability to have their loans forgiven. The borrowers identified by the Department won't have to go through the typical application process for receiving a disability discharge, which requires sending in documented proof of their disability. Instead, the borrower will simply have to sign and return the completed application enclosed in the letter.
I know that it's good to be charitable in personal views, and public policy. And you should not make the process onerous. But having no verification of disability by some authority is going to lead to abuse of this entitlement. And it just has to be a small fraction of people who take advantage, to undermine trust that the taxpayer is not being ripped off.
This is significant money being given forgiven. The administration would serve themselves better if they put up even small, reasonable checks on who is able to actually get this benefit.
Just like how you start to get very mad at people who are able to abuse handicapped parking spots because the govt is totally lax about who get to use this benefit (not just who has the placard, but who uses it). Trust in the appearance of public institutions is just as important as actual functioning -- a small number of cases of fraud and abuse can undermine it.
Is not it awesome, when you can spend other people's moneys and get all the credit for your "generosity"?
Are single mothers next on the list? Their's is a difficult lot too.
How about racial minorities — we know, they are economically disadvantaged as well?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I know everyone's going to scream "evil socialism! disability fraud!" but people who actually qualify for a permanent and total disability are never going to be able to fully benefit from their education. Whether it's the inability to do physical work or acknowledging the discrimination that disabled people encounter in the workplace, the result is the same.
In this case, it makes sense to make it easy to get rid of the debt. If I recall correctly, student loans are almost impossible to discharge any other way. Bankruptcy doesn't get rid of them, nor does crippling financial hardship. There is a process to forgive them due to hardship but it's so onerous that no one in a normal situation would qualify.
Someone has to pay for it.
People who cry out socialism at the drop of the hat don't want their tax dollars being used to help those OTHER people. That don't mind if the government pays for the programs that they care about, say, Social Security benefits.
Disability Fraud is a different thing. Root cause and all. That should be addressed BAU, regularly.
This feels awful, ;like these former students are getting away with something. But the truth is, they are incapable of paying off their loans, and to pretend otherwise is to just wait until they die, and then saddle their heirs or such with the bill. Which isn't much of a solution. Unless you really, really want to collect from anyone, by any means. We've outlawed many of the most grievous debt collection methods elsewhere, so why not let the gummint go ahead and use those, right?
I don't see the downside to this.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
People who cry out socialism at the drop of the hat don't want their tax dollars being used to help those OTHER people.
People that went to college make average salaries much higher than the median. So this is just another way that well intentioned social policy has been turned around to make the poor subsidize the rich ... and before you protest that these people are disabled, you should be aware that the number of people classified as "disabled" has tripled under Obama. At least 2/3rds of these people should be working.
That don't mind if the government pays for the programs that they care about, say, Social Security benefits.
... which is yet another example of the poor subsidizing the rich. Poor people, and especially black people, have much shorter expected lifetimes than rich white people. So they pay into the system, but collect much less in benefits, since they have many fewer years of retirement.
Someone has to pay for it.
People who cry out socialism at the drop of the hat don't want their tax dollars being used to help those OTHER people. That don't mind if the government pays for the programs that they care about, say, Social Security benefits.
Uh, I'm the one paying for Social Security.
Uh, I'm the one paying for Social Security.
Twenty years from now about two-thirds of the federal budget will go to Social Security and Medicare. Retirees will outnumber workers, reducing the amount of taxes going into the system. Who will make up the difference in benefits and pay for everything else? The few taxpayers who are still working.
Amen its my money going into Social Security not a freaking handout!
That's not correct. Your money in Social Security is paying for today's retirees. When you retire tomorrow, tomorrow workers will be paying for your benefits. Unfortunately, 20 years from now, there won't be enough workers to pay for retirees.
"Since Reagan, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into a mental hospital.
So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture
and the pharmaceutical lobby - that's the Democrats.
And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans" - Bill Maher
I dunno. Why don't you go and actually look.
Yes, that's my contention as well. You don't know.
You see, if YOU are going to make an argument, the burden isn't on me to prove your point. If you want to make baseless statements, well, good for you, but you aren't going to convince too many people that way. I had assumed incorrectly that you posted here to try and make a point, not just waste the Internet's bits. My mistake.
You: Did you know that Idaho has the largest number of people with an IQ > 150?
Person: Really? Where'd you hear that?
You: I dunno. Why don't you go and look it up yourself.
Brilliant.