Wednesday, November 02, 2011

An Idea Whose Time Has Come - Capping Loan Payments

President Obama feels the pain of the poor college students who have taken out six-figure loans and are now expected to pay them back. Here's his proposal.
That’s why we’re making changes that will give about 1.6 million students the ability to cap their loan payments at 10 percent of their income starting next year.
I like this idea and think it needs to be extended to other areas as well. How about these:
  • We will give you the ability to cap your tax payments to 10 percent of your income.

  • We will give you the ability to cap your house payments to 10 percent of your income.

  • We will give you the ability to cap your car payments to 10 percent of your income.

  • We will give you the ability to cap your credit card payments to 10 percent of your income.
I think this will get America working again. After all, if we do this, I can afford a $2.5M home, a Lotus Exige and $350,000 in credit card debt. Talk about throwing the economy into high gear! Pass this bill, Mr. Heartless Republican Plutocrat Homophobe Racist!

A Lotus Exige. We can't wait!

8 comments:

tim eisele said...

I just saw an article about this in The Economist this morning. It said that the student loans are already capped at 15% of income. So this isn't so much a new policy, as it is shifting the numbers on an old policy.

Secular Apostate said...

If you replace every "10 percent" in KT's post with "15%", you still get the same point. Which, by the way, is correct... to wit:

Student "loans" are not loans at all. They are welfare payments to entice young people to eschew the workplace for a decade and to support tenured Professors of of Nitwittery and their feckless graduate students.

tim eisele said...

Well yes, I'm not saying it isn't a misguided idea. I'm saying it isn't new, and has been going on for a while now with nobody much noticing.

K T Cat said...

For me, just writing that list illustrated the problem with the idea. It allows you set payments well below a normal repayment rate. Repayment is what renews a lender's ability to make new loans. There's no concern at all for the lender, only for the recipient. The end result is that, once again we spend the future in an attempt to cling to a childish worldview.

Dean said...

Pass the bill?

Wasn't this going to be just another one of the (P)resident's We-can't-wait executive orders?

K T Cat said...

Outstanding! All I need is a stroke of his pen and I can have my Lotus Exige!

Mostly Nothing said...

As a parent of 2 teen age boys.... Can we cap our food payments at 10%?

K T Cat said...

Why not? Let's cap everything at 10%!