Student Loans vs. PPP

I was raised like my co-host Don down in Texas: when you owe money, you pay it back. Here’s the thing though. In my childhood, we all looked out for each other and we all were in debt up to our eyeballs working two or three jobs to pay those debts and put food on the table. And when we helped each other out, did we ask for payment? No. Not a single time do I recall my father asking for money when my cousin and aunt moved in. And you’ve probably heard me mention on the podcast before that my father (n-th generation Texan) always carried around extra cash when he could so that he could give to people who were worse off than we were.

So I say let the loans go. The lenders aren’t going to go broke (because they’ve been rolling in interest payments for decades by now). And really, every dollar that’s tied up in loans is a dollar that’s not circulating within our wider community.

Like we’ve said time and time again on this podcast: it turns out that doing the right thing also helps build our community and make us stronger and safer. Want the details on how reducing student loan debt helps our wider community? Listen to this podcast.

It’s a hard thing to say that sometimes, just sometimes, our ideological stances work against us. The good news? We control our ideologies. I pay my debts on time, but what I no longer do is begrudge someone who can’t. Especially when working in a system that seems designed to make them fail.