UNLOCKED! Student Debt Special (feat. Allie Conti, Marshall Steinbaum and Matt Bruenig)

Current Affairs

Comedy, Government, News, Culture, Politics

4.4 • 645 Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2020

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Unlocked from our Patreon feed, here's a little bonus for you all! Current Affairs finance editor Sparky Abraham sits down with Vice writer Allie Conti, economics professor Marshall Steinbaum and People's Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig to discuss the question of cancelling student debt, in light of Bernie Sanders' and Elizabeth Warren's recent plans for college debt forgiveness. This episode was originally made available for Patreon subscribers in July 2019. To gain full access to more episodes like this, please consider becoming one of our supporters at www.patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Allie on student debt forgiveness: https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/qv75kd/people-trapped-by-student-debt-need-money-not-a-long-policy-argument Matt's writing on the issue: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/06/24/the-student-debt-forgiveness-muddle-continues/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/student-debt-forgiveness-free-college Marshall on whether it's regressive: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/06/is-student-debt-cancellation-regressive-no Sparky on free college: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/04/the-case-for-free-college This episode was edited by Dan Thorn of Pink Noise Studios in Somerville, MA.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome Bird Feed and whoever else to a Current Affairs bonus podcast about student loans,
0:06.0	about student loan cancellation, possibly about free college and about whether these things are
0:10.8	regressive or not. I am the finance editor of current affairs, Sparky Abraham. Here with some
0:15.8	extremely special guests tonight. We have Ali Conti, senior staff writer at Vice. Hey, Sparky, thanks for having me.
0:23.0	We've got Professor at University of Utah, Marshall Steinbaum. Hey, great to be here. And we've got the
0:27.5	founder of the People's Policy Project, Matt Brunick. Thanks for having me. I want to talk because
0:33.5	there's been a lot of discussion between the Warren student debt cancellation plan,
0:39.3	the Bernie student debt cancellation plan, the free college plans that go along with those.
0:43.9	There's been a lot of talk about whether these plans are regressive or not.
0:48.9	And I take it the argument from a lot of people is that if these things are regressive,
0:53.8	what they mean to say is that
0:55.2	the plans are disproportionately benefiting people who are richer, whether by income or wealth.
1:02.3	And so the argument would go, you know, if student debt cancellation in some form or another
1:06.5	is regressive, if it disproportionately benefits rich people, then we probably shouldn't do it,
1:12.1	or we should find some other way to do it, right?
1:14.0	Everyone here has written about this in some way or another.
1:17.6	You know, I think that we all come at this with slightly different perspectives.
1:21.4	And so I'm hoping that we can probably find some things to disagree on about this.
1:25.2	Let me try to give a little bit of framing for this.
1:27.2	And then you all, if you disagree with my framing... find some things to disagree on about this. Let me try to give a little bit of framing for this,
1:33.2	and then you all, if you disagree with my framing, should say so. So here's kind of how I understand it. It's like, if you're saying something is strictly regressive, what you mean is like
1:37.7	poor people are paying more than rich people for something. Or in this context, it might mean
	...

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