Until everything is free and we all go broke!

One of these days the Head Groundskeeper will spot a likely progressive, a Trotsky look-alike walking along Madison’s Monroe Street — all masked up for Covid in the great outdoors — and tackle him to the ground. Shoving an iPhone in his face to record his flustered response, the Werkes poses this question for the amusement of our platinum subscribers: How much more free stuff are you going to inflict on America?

Joe Biden’s college loan forgiveness is only a down payment on the progressive project of government-paid everything. The Nation magazine (John Nichols’ day job) says as much: “Joe Biden’s $10,000 student debt cancellation is a huge win — but it’s not enough.”

One Nation reader objected: “I’m so tired of the “it’s not enough” phrase and headline right now. I get it. Of course we have to keep pushing for more! But do we have to do it one hour after something is announced?” The reader makes clear that socialism is a tough sell in an election year. She counsels:

In the midst of pushing people to get to the polls for the midterms? Why not frame it as: hold the House, get a few more Senators, and then let’s do more.

 

Market distortion

Big Gummint’s finger on the scale distorts market decisions, as it did when the easy-credit housing bubble burst in 2008. Free money papers over unproductive decisions. To wit: The average debt for a master’s degree recipient is $71,287; for a doctoral grad it’s $159,625. Yet the median salary for a Ph.D. is a mere $55,000 in the humanities and $67,250 in social sciences. (Source here.)

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Uncle Joe took you for a chump

Charlie Cooke in National Review: I opened the door to six guys in blue shirts who had come to my house to replace our air-conditioning units. … The company they work for … was started by a guy who chose to forgo college in favor of taking out a small-business loan to strike out on his own. Most of the technicians who work for him didn’t go to college, either. They took a different path. And, well . . . what absolute chumps the President has just made of them for that!

The Babylon Bee reports, you decide:

‘Average lifetime earnings of a Gender Studies grad rise $10,000’ (albeit from $0.)

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“Every $20,000 of loan forgiveness,”  Kimberly Strassel (one of the essentials) writes, “is $20,000 the favored college forgiven can blow on urban loft refits or Hawaiian vacations.” She quotes Obama administration economist Jason Furman: “Pouring roughly half [a] trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless.”

Enough with the economics, Blaska! Get back to the culture wars! Your wish is … Even the Washington Post editorializes: “Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college.”

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Higher education (you have enough fingers to count the exceptions) has become a cancel-culture zone of anti-American political repression. Breeding ground for critical race theory, gender bending, and outright Marxism.

Is anything more arrogant than a tenured university professor?