Warren wants gov’t to pay for flawed ed-loan decisions

Too big to fail — or default — that’s how our senior senator from Massachusetts characterizes the roughly 43 million Americans who owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loans.

Elizabeth Warren enlisted the support of two other Massachusetts progressives, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and state Attorney General Maura Healey, who both testified during a Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday on that subject chaired by Warren.

These three want President Biden to use his executive authority to cancel up to $50,000 of anyone’s federal student loan debt.

“America is facing a student loan time bomb that, when it explodes, could throw millions of families over a financial cliff,” warned Warren.

The irony of someone associated with arguably the most spendthrift deliberative body in the world raising the specter of unsustainable debt would be amusing if not for the stakes involved.

Nowhere in these debt-eliminators’ discourse does the role of personal responsibility appear, having somehow become an irrelevant, inconsequential trait, instead of a quality that should be promoted.

And according to Forbes.com, there’s certainly value in what Warren and her cohorts propose.

U.S. Department of Education data recently released by Warren provides significant new details on the impact that mass student loan forgiveness could have on millions of Americans.

At $10,000 in student loan forgiveness, over 15 million student loan borrowers would become debt-free. At $20,000, more than 24 million borrowers would be bailed out. And at $50,000, that figure inflates to 36 million.

Borrowers in default on their federal student loans would also benefit enormously. From 4.5 to 9.8 million of them could have their debt burdens completely eliminated, depending on the amount of relief.

Whether any of this occurs remains to be seen. Advocates and progressives like Warren continue to press Biden to act through his executive powers.

The president so far has resisted that course, suggesting he may not have legal authority to do so; he’s reportedly also expressed some misgivings about those higher loan-forgiveness amounts.

Nonetheless, his administration recently announced that attorneys under Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will explore a legal basis for wiping out student loans through executive action.

But why should an entire class of Americans get a pass on paying back what they owe, when other borrowers — not to mention those who’ve struggled to repay those student loans — don’t?

Probably because Congress has been a shining example of living beyond one’s means for years, continually appropriating money this country doesn’t have, with little concern about the financial burden it places on every single American.

It’s true that after outstanding mortgage balances — nearly $10 trillion — student loans constitute the largest debt obligation, followed closely by auto loans ($1.36 trillion).

And it should be obvious — even to a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts — that the federal government can least afford to forgive money it’s owed.

If any amount of student-loan forgiveness is contemplated, it should be tied to some sort of public-service commitment in lieu of repayment.

And mandating financial-literacy courses in our public high schools might help nip some of these ill-advised college borrowing decisions in the bud.

It should also be a required course for every newly elected member of Congress.