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Could Refinancing All Student Loans Be A Free Lunch For The Taxpayers?

Could Refinancing All Student Loans Be A Free Lunch For The Taxpayers?

As I noted, the consolidation program outlined above worries them a little.  Well, here is what I am thinking.  Maybe we the taxpayers need to encourage our President and his likely opponent to propose a program that would worry Sallie a lot.  It is our guaranty that makes the debts of those kids (and many of them are not kids anymore) a valuable financial asset, that the capital markets can play with for the next 20 years.  Why don’t we just offer to refinance the whole lot at a reasonable rate?  That includes the loans that are not performing that well.  We are already stuck with the downside on them because of the guaranty.  If we want to be nice guys, we could do things like put in bankruptcy protection for the really desperate.  But even, if we want to be hardnosed about, it is the taxpayers who are at risk that should be making the profits on the loans for the next twenty years.

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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.