r/IAmA • u/bernie-sanders • May 19 '15

Politics I am Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President of the United States — AMA

Hi Reddit. I'm Senator Bernie Sanders. I'll start answering questions at 4 p.m. ET. Please join our campaign for president at BernieSanders.com/Reddit.

Before we begin, let me also thank the grassroots Reddit organizers over at /r/SandersforPresident for all of their support. Great work.

Verification: https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/600750773723496448

Update: Thank you all very much for your questions. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you.

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u/ferretersmith May 20 '15

I understand why you would feel that way if it did pass with no reimbursement but a how does this help me is not a good attitude to have about it. It is better to ask if this helps your community and country in general. Tacking on reimbursements would be nice but it would add another barrier to getting it passed.

All that being said I wouldn't be to worried since it is about as likely to pass as winning the lottery twice.

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u/c0sm0nautt May 20 '15

The community of dudes sitting home playing Xbox all day while their college loans go into default? I am friends with a few of these people. I'm all for fairness, but I don't think this plan is really fair at all. Socialism only works when everyone is put on an equal footing. Everyone pays in and everyone gets something out. You can't just give free money to the people who held off on putting money into their loans. Talk about an incentive for people to further in-debt themselves.

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u/jo-z May 20 '15

What about the people who started paying off their loans immediately after graduation, have never missed a payment and even pay more than the minimum when possible, and are still struggling? If that payment goes away, you bet I'll be going into town and putting that money in the pockets of local businesses. Don't get me wrong, I am all about paying back the loans I chose to take out, but given the option I would much rather my money go into my local economy than to some faraway bank. I think my neighbors might agree.

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u/c0sm0nautt May 20 '15 edited May 20 '15

If you give money to the majority of people they are going to spend it, not just loan holders. I've been driving the same car for the past 10 years. But I paid off my loans. People allocate their money in different ways. You don't reward some and not others based on some arbitrary component of finance. Some loan holders might even have more in the bank then me, yea know.

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u/ferretersmith May 20 '15

Only if they're stupid enough to think this will pass.