Tag: progressive

Many Critics of Student Debt Forgiveness Plans are Mistaken

Many critics of Bernie Sanders’ plan to forgive all 1.6 trillion dollars of student debt, or Elizabeth Warren’s plan to forgive all student debt up to $ 50,000, do not necessarily understand the full effects of the plan.

They argue that the plan would disproportionately help wealthy people as they are the ones more likely to go to college.

It is true that wealthier people are more likely to go to college but poor and middle-class young people who take on student debt are far more burdened by their debt and canceling it would have monumental effects on their ability to participate in the economy, freeing them up to buy homes, start families, and move up the economic ladder.

All Americans, even those without student debt, would benefit from debt cancellation but low-income young people who are most burdened by their debt would stand to gain the most under both the Sanders and Warren plans.

Liz or Bernie? Who should be progressives’ top choice?

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Progressives like me are facing a difficult choice at the moment.  Is Elizabeth Warren a better candidate than the OG, Bernie Sanders?

Do Warren’s sheer knowledge and the level of quality and detail in her numerous lefty policy proposals outweigh Sanders’ 40-year consistent record of being a progressive champion?

Does Sanders’ ideological consistency give him the upper hand compared to Warren’s past as a registered Republican (albeit more than 20 years ago) and her break from complete support of Medicare for All?  

Questions like these are forcing progressives and leftists, accustomed to having to choose between the lesser of two evils each election, to make a choice that we rarely have to make﹘a choice between two superb candidates with excellent qualities.

My take is that this tension is only a proof of a healthy and upsurging progressive movement and progressives like Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez ought to let the primary play out for a bit longer before making a final decision as to who they will support.