NPR is Not Your Friend

NPR is a problem. Good and proper leftists who read Current Affairs may already realize this. “Of course. NPR (Neoliberal Propaganda Radio) is a bastion of establishment groupthink and orthodoxy that gives cover to imperialism and corporate capitalism.” By contrast, readers on the Right who find themselves consuming Current Affairs may have an equally disdainful but entirely different critique. “Of course. NPR is an elitist liberal propaganda cult that serves as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, is openly hostile to any conservative voices, and ought to be defunded!”

NPR is Not Your Friend

Biden’s student-loan debt forgiveness would cost $300 billion, report says — less than half of the defense budget

Biden’s student-loan debt forgiveness would cost $300 billion, report says — less than half of the defense budget

Student loans currently aren’t even profitable for the government. A July report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that federal loans are actually projected to cost the government $197 billion, instead of bringing in what the Education Department estimated as a $114 billion profit, because of the various pauses and changes over the last couple of years.

The price of student-loan forgiveness pales in comparison to other major federal expenditures. Defense spending is projected to cost nearly $8.7 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and will cost $796 billion in 2022 alone.

That $300 billion is also a fraction of how much borrowers hold right now; America’s student loan debtors currently owe $1.7 trillion.

While Biden has not publicly confirmed his plans for broad student-loan relief, he has said himself he will make the decision before August 31, when student-loan payments are set to resume. In April, he shot down $50,000 in relief — an amount many Democratic lawmakers and advocates have been pushing for — and recent reports have suggested his final amount will be near $10,000, which he pledged on the campaign trail.