Erasing Student Debt

Brut America

Top Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have announced major plans to cancel student debt. This used to be an issue candidates would avoid — now, it's front and center for the 2020 election.

Transcript

00:00Between my brother and I, we have right around $200,000, maybe a little more, $200,000 in debt.

00:07I think I got like $40,000 in debt in just like two years.

00:12I never thought that I'd be able to pay it off, I swear to God.

00:15A society which is less unequal, which is more equal, which has greater opportunities,

00:28or greater equality of opportunities, is also a society which is better at long-term growth.

00:34To put it in perspective, that is greater than the total GDP of most countries in the world.

00:46That's an enormous, enormous burden.

00:48Significantly greater than total credit card debt in the United States.

00:52It's about $600 billion greater than total credit card debt.

01:05Well, there are many, many different types of precedents to this.

01:08The biggest and probably the most dramatic one was when, after the Second World War,

01:13when Germany's debt was written off.

01:15Look what happened to the banks in 2008 financial crisis.

01:18Who caused the crisis?

01:20I mean, a trillion of dollars were written off in debt on the grounds that this was essential

01:25to keep the economy going.

01:27There are many, many other examples of this kind.

01:35The Great Depression

01:49I favor the kind of free public school, at least for public universities and so on, and education,

01:54because education is a public good, and public goods are to be supplied in the world.

01:59And also creates a fairer and more just society,

02:03and a society with less kind of social tensions and stresses for human beings.

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