The Lever: Cancel student debt, no strings attached

Given Biden's plummeting poll numbers he's finally considering canceling student debt. But of course there's a catch: The ever insidious means testing. On the surface it sounds fair, but is it really? The answer is a resounding NO. To the contrary it just makes more red tape that defeats its very purpose of helping those who need it most. 

It does this by creating yet another huge bureaucracy with so much red tape that makes it frustratingly difficult if not impossible for recipients to get the benefit. It's real purpose is to feed such a complex beast, its very complexity the point. Well meaning liberals who want to help think complexity is always the answer to everything when sometimes it is the devil in the details that upsets the entire apple cart. And it certainly is in this specific case. Universal principles sometimes (ofttimes?) require simple solutions and the obsessed liberals just can't see the trees for the forest.

A simple, no-strings, universal benefit for everyone, like social security and Medicare, does a far better job. And in both those cases and this one, the benefits help those who need it most. The rich have golden parachute health insurance plans, plus can afford to pay the premiums, deductibles and co-pays so rarely if ever even use Medicare. Same goes for student loan debt: Most never take it out in the first place. As for social security, even though the rich don't need it they still get it but it's a small societal price to pay to ensure that those most in need get the help.

The simple bottom line is that complexity for its own sake is not a cure but a very sick disease. Just cancel student debt, period. That is, if you really want to help not just those burdened students but society as a whole when they can afford to be good consumers again.