People are conflating two issues, free college and college debt forgiveness. Making college free is a dumb idea not the fairness issues are minimal. The parable does not apply because all the workers got what they signed on for, whereas student debt forgiveness changes the rules after people have made their decisions.
What people are criticizing Warren for is the debt forgiveness part. Some people took loans out and some did not. Those who did not are being told to pay for the loans of those who did. That is obviously unfair. If someone saved up to buy a Kia and someone else took out a loan to buy a BMW, why should the KIA driver be taxed to pay for the BMW drivers loans? When people hear the word college some seem to go into a swoon and all logic goes out the window.
Whether it’s “legit” or not, I think it’s a part of human nature, one that I can understand and sympathize with. It goes against our sense of fairness or justice when we work really hard for (and/or sacrifice to obtain) something, and then others are given that thing without having to do or give up anything. (And yes, I immediately thought of that same parable of Jesus that Kimstu brought up, which plays on that facet of human nature.)
This is what’s behind many people’s opposition to welfare: the feeling that other people are just being given something that I have to work hard for (or, worse, they’re being given something that I can’t even afford). The resentment level rises when the welfare recipients are seen as not really deserving or not really needing what they’re given: they could work to support themselves but choose not to. And it rises even further when the recipients are actively cheating or gaming the system.
IMHO, there is some fraction of this resentment that is “legit,” or at least defensible, and some that is not. Some of the reasons that those who pay their own way are able to do so are that they have been given things that others have not, like a sound mind and body or a secure and prosperous childhood.
Let’s see: his daughter’s getting her college paid for, and under Warren’s plan, the same thing would be true for young men and women who made less fortunate choices of parents.
Sounds to me like everything would be working out even.
I think the father does have a legitimate complaint. It sucks that he busted his ass hard to pay for things and all the sudden other people are getting it for free. But as SanVito pointed out, that doesn’t mean we should keep the system we have in place just because it sucks for this one guy.
For this particular example, I don’t think that father has a legitimate grievance, and I think he’s creating a false dichotomy in his complaint. He’s trying to equate his method of paying for college as “the right thing”, and anyone who chose to take out a loan as “the wrong thing”; this isn’t true.
Secondly, he can’t really complain because he’s paying for his daughter’s education, which he’s not obligated to do at all; he chose to do it. Why didn’t she pay for it? He basically gave her a gift that most other people don’t get, and is now complaining that some other people might get the same kind of gift his kid got.
There will always be a discreet transition time when good (or bad) things come along; that can’t be helped. Were small pox victims “screwed over” because they got the disease before vaccination came about? There will always be some people subject to the very tail end of worse times, but unless those in control purposely time things with a targeted group in mind, I don’t think it’s a legitimate grievance… just an unfortunate reality.
Child labor laws are unfair because children used to work in coal mines. OSHA is unfair because people used to lose limbs all the time in meat packing plants. Democracy is unfair because Kings used to rule over their vassals.
I don’t think the argument is so much that people should be made to suffer, as it is that those who put in more effort than others should get more credit.
For instance, going back to the A+ example, suppose that one student puts in a lot of hard work studying for a test, and answers all test questions correctly, and gets an A+. But then the teacher abruptly announces that all the other students (who have yet to even take the test) will be gifted an A+ anyway without needing to take the test.
Does the student who studied hard and took the test, deserve some extra credit for his/her labor, or are they only entitled to the same outcome (A+) as the others?
Just a side comment, because I just found this out yesterday – my sister went to elementary school with a kid who had had small pox. Obviously, this was before the small pox vaccine was developed. She said he had the scars all over his face. She’s 67, so that’s the timeline. It was in California.
In this rather absurd hypothetical that does not relate to the question at hand, he comes out of it with more knowledge than the rest of the students. And as that is the entire point of going to school, he is already better off.
Money, grades, is it all just a score, a way to show off your superiority to others?
Here’s another hypothetical. You and your friend are at the bottom of a cliff face, and you want to get to the top. After hours of climbing, you finally get to the top, where your friend is waiting after having taken the stairs. Do you deserve to be up there more than he does?
What the OP’s example boils down to is that Warren was proposing to spend taxpayer money to forgive other people’s loans. That is much different from an employer giving free cars to every employee except the one who already has a car. It would be much more comparable to the employer saying, “No raises this year. Instead, we are going to use the money to buy everyone a car…except you.”
Elon Musk invents the YardBot. It’s a robot that has all the gizmos to do all your yard work, and smart enough to use them correctly. It mows the lawn when it needs it, applies fertilizer, weed n’ feed, etc. at the appropriate times of year, rakes the leaves in the fall, blows the leaves and grass clippings off your driveway and walkways, pressure-washes your exterior walls, trims your shrubbery, you name it. They cost $100K each, but you think: I’ll never have to do all that yard work again!
Jump forward six or eight years, and as often happens in the high-tech world, other manufacturers have reverse-engineered everything the YardBot does, and competition has pushed the price of rival yard robots down to $5000 apiece, and the rivals also wash and wax your cars, check your oil and tire pressure, and add oil and air as needed. Now practically everybody’s got one, and they didn’t have to put a second mortgage on their homes to get one.
Should you feel aggrieved that you paid serious money for yours, while others are now getting theirs for peanuts?
ISTM that the only difference between this scenario and the OP’s is that there’s nobody in particular to blame in this one.
It would be more like, “We’re buying everyone a car that wants a car!” And you saying, “I don’t want a car, as I already bought one. Therefore, no one else can have one either.”
If there’s any unfairness at all it would be to exclude people who have already been to college from getting another degree under the new terms. That can be easily rectified. Otherwise there is nothing unfair about it.
Some people’s parents can easily afford to pay all of their childrens’ college expenses, and will do so. Other peoples’ parents can and will do so, but only with considerable difficulty, meaning that they have to work extremely long hours and/or work at jobs that are extremely unpleasant for them and/or go without things most people in their society think of as essential. Some peoples’ parents either can’t or won’t pay for all of their childrens’ college expenses, but can and will (with varying degrees of difficulty) contribute something. Some peoples’ parents either can’t or won’t contribute anything at all to their childrens’ college expenses.
People whose parents are in the second two categories often take out loans. Is it not unfair to them that their parents weren’t in the first category, or at least the second?
Problem is, you can’t actually tell how hard somebody’s working by how much money they wind up with. Many very difficult jobs with long hours don’t pay very much.
And what you’re saying is behind many people’s opposition to welfare could be used just as well to defend resenting people who have lots of money, but who inherited either the money itself or the advantages that made it much easier for them to get one of the jobs that does pay well.
I was good at tests when I was in school. It generally took me very little effort to do well on them. Some of those who did worse on those tests than I did studied harder.
Maybe they should have gotten extra credit. One problem is, it’s massively harder to assess how much effort is actually being applied than it is to assess the results. But I think it’s utterly unfair to assume, without considerable other evidence about the specific case, that because someone didn’t do well on a test, that it must be because they didn’t study. Just as I think it’s utterly unfair to assume, without considerable other evidence about the specific case, that because somebody can’t afford to pay for college it must be because they (or their parents) are unwilling to work.
Agreeing with all of those three. Saying ‘nobody else should get this benefit because it wasn’t available in the past when I could have used it’ is not, IMO, a good argument.
