Sanders wants to stop the federal government from taking Social Security checks to pay back federal student loans. The same entity that gave you the money wants to stop itself from taking back the money it gave you to pay back different money it gave you earlier. This is what happens when you let a government run a lending operation and a retirement program and somehow act surprised when the spreadsheets talk to each other.
The garnishment exists because someone decades ago looked at the student loan default crisis and said "You know where deadbeats hide money? Retirement accounts." Then they built a system to claw it back. Now Sanders wants to blow up that system because apparently watching 72-year-olds choose between pills and Sallie Mae payments makes for bad campaign footage.
Here's the trade setup nobody asked for. If you're getting your Social Security garnished for student loans, you took out debt in your 20s, didn't pay it back through your 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, and now you're shocked the bill came due. That's not a policy failure. That's a four-decade commitment to financial self-sabotage that would impress even the most degenerate options trader.
The technical pattern here is called a legislative virtue signal with declining volume. Sanders files a bill. It gets coverage. Nothing passes. Grandma's check still gets docked $150 a month. The only thing that changes is Bernie's email list gets another fundraising angle.
But sure, let's protect the Social Security benefits. Right after we protect the people who spent forty years not paying their loans from the consequences of spending forty years not paying their loans.
Photo by Sacha Verheij on Unsplash
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