As if the upcoming 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential elections don’t look bad enough for the Democrats, many of their voters are looking to hold Joe Biden to his promise to forgive student loan debt.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden floated multiple student loan forgiveness balloons, including a plan devised by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would involve “an immediate cancellation of a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person.”
Apparently, student loan forgiveness is a hill to die on for a significant number of potential voters, as a recent survey has pointed out. The poll, conducted by Pollfish and commissioned by Intelligent, leads with the bombshell that a fifth of Democratic voters say they won’t vote for Biden without some action on student loan debt forgiveness.
Among the key findings of the survey is the revelation that “21% of Democrats won’t support Biden in 2024 without action on student loans, compared to 20% of Republicans, and 27% of independent voters.”
Interestingly enough, the Republican surveyed admitted that it’s more than student loans that turn them against Biden: “61% won’t consider voting for him in 2024 under any circumstances.”
Canceling student loan debt is a big deal to more voters than you would think, according to the poll.
“To the majority of registered voters, student loan cancellation matters. Forty-two percent say the issue is ‘very important’ to them, while 35% say it’s ‘somewhat important,’” the survey notes.
“Simultaneously, the majority of Americans, 77%, agree that Biden should cancel at least some student loan debt, although they disagree on exactly how much of this debt should be forgiven,” the report continues. “Twenty-nine percent want Biden to cancel all unpaid student loans for all borrowers. Twenty-six percent support canceling up to $10,000 per borrower, while 22% want up to $50,000 per borrower forgiven.”
Here’s how the survey breaks down:
Voters’ attitudes toward the Biden administration’s handling of the issue of student loan debt is all over the place. Just over a third say they’re dissatisfied; 18% call themselves “very dissatisfied” and 16% are “somewhat dissatisfied.” Fourteen percent are “very satisfied,” while 23% are “somewhat satisfied.” The largest group of voters — 29% — are neutral toward the issue. Naturally, voters with student loan debt are most likely to express their dissatisfaction.
Of course, throwing taxpayer money at student loans won’t help those who didn’t get government loans in the first place, as a friend of mine who’s currently in college pointed out.
“Some of us are in crippling student debt in the private sector, so we can’t rely on Joe to bail us out. We took out the loan, we gotta pay it back,” he said.
And for all this administration’s carping about fairness and “equity,” — heck, that of the left in general — forgiving federal student loans doesn’t do jack squat for scholarship students or for those who are working their way through school.
Another friend of mine pointed out that all this government largesse doesn’t benefit hardworking parents who helped their kids pay for school, either.
“When our kids were young, we worked our butts off, she said. “We both took on multiple side jobs in addition to our full-time jobs. We lived in fixer-uppers and renovated them ourselves. We did without fancy vacations and cars. We spent decades working and sacrificing so our kids wouldn’t start their adult lives hamstrung with student debt. The idea of other people, who chose not to work as hard or save as much as they could have, getting their kids’ college paid for by our tax dollars makes me livid.”
If you’re still paying on student loans, I imagine it sounds nice for Uncle Sam to pony up some generous largesse to forgive all or part of your loans. But, for those of us who aren’t, these promises — and the ongoing demands that the Biden administration needs to follow up on them — smack of even more big government overspending, and Lord knows we can’t afford to engage in much more of that.
Source: PJ Media
