Wealth doesn't "trickle down" from the rich to the poor

Pro: "The student loan problem just means that the poor and middle class owe more money to the government and are further being harmed." Exactly. So any "trickle down" just evaporates into an abyss of nothingness. Give a trickle down to someone who is financially bombed, and your trickle down is meaningless. As a matter of fact, it makes all models useless, unless that model includes paying their debt off or giving them enough money to make a difference. If they owe $150,000 in useless debt and we give them $500, the government intercepts their money to help pay the federal student loan debt. They intercept tax refunds, parts of paychecks, and any money owed to them. So...now they owe $149,500. All of these peoples' money is intercepted before they can even see it. People making say, $17 an hour , are living like people making minimum wage or less. Are they contributing to the economy? No. More than 25% of students who take on college debt are graduating with way too much of it, according to experts. And the repercussions could be lifelong. 25% of students are in the situation I described above. Fix this and you fix a giant heap of the economic unbalance in the U.S. today. Imagine if that 25% were not enslaved to the student loan system. How much money would then go directly into the economy? It would make a massive difference. time.com/money/4168510/why-student-loan-crisis-is-worse-than-people-think According to Sheila Bair, the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the financial crisis, "There needs to be more accountability by schools who have been taking advantage of these kids, It makes me very angry.” -The average student loan balance among people with bachelor's degrees has risen from $15,000 in the mid 1990s to about $27,000, according to the Fed. "This is having a crippling effect on economic activity, says Barbara O'Neill, a specialist in financial resource management for Rutgers University." "A lot of things are being postponed. You've got what you call a crowding out effect. People only have so much money," she said. "There’s a lot of business activity that isn’t taking place ... It’s a drag on everything." "Fewer people are buying homes and cars, O'Neill says, because large portions of their income are being eaten up by student loans. They're also less likely to start the small businesses that provide jobs and services that drive the economy." www.businessinsider.com/3-charts-explain-the-effect-of-student-loans-on-the-economy-2015-5 http://www.forbes.com... * Students are having no luck finding jobs except in the service sector industry. For the first time in history, student loan debt now exceeds the total national credit card debt. One in every five young adults between the ages of 18 to 34 are in poverty. economyincrisis.org/content/the-root-cause-for-student-loan-debt * This has a horrible effect on the economy. If graduates are paying back student loans every month, they can’t save up for retirement or a mortgage, or pay off credit cards, financing on vehicles and other debts. They’re unable to spend money at stores, which has a devastating effect on the economy at all levels. "Trickle down" theory holds that tax cuts for the wealthy will benefit the whole economy because new wealth at the top will circulate throughout the market and find its way into the pockets of the middle class. It can't find its way to the middle class when it's intercepted to payoff student loan debt that can never be paid off in a lifetime anyway. It trickles down to...the government to try and recover their losses on irresponsible federal lending. The government caused a problem that no current economic model can overcome without the problem being removed or solved. * Supply Side Economics has worked and can work. In the 30 years from the 1980s through the first decade of the new century, supply side economics contributed to the biggest boom in U.S. history. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, "1982-1999 was one continuous mega economic expansion." As it reached into 2007, this 25 Year Boom causef a tripling in the net wealth of U.S. families and businesses from $20 trillion in 1981 to $60 trillion in 2007. When an adjustment was made for inflation, more wealth was created in this 25 year stretch than in the previous 200 years combined. www.laffercenter.com/supply-side-economics