取消学生贷款比听起来容易

取消学生贷款比听起来容易

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has pledged to cancel up to $50.000 of debt for 95% of student loan borrowers if she is elected president. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., has proposed an even more generous plan if he's elected.

马萨诸塞州民主党参议员伊丽莎白沃伦。她承诺，如果当选总统，将为95%的学生贷款借款人免除至多5万美元的债务。佛蒙特州民主党参议员伯尼桑德斯如果当选的化话，他提出了一个更慷慨的计划。

Both are bold, controversial pitches that would have a hard time making it through a divided Congress. But on Tuesday, Warren announced she would use a little-known shortcut, and wouldn't need Congress. As president, she says, she could cancel the debts of tens of millions of student borrowers all on her own.

这两个都是大胆而有争议的提案，如果国会出现分歧，将很难通过。但周二，沃伦宣布她将使用一条鲜为人知的捷径，而且不需要国会。她说，作为总统，她可以完全靠自己取消数千万学生借款人的债务。

It turns out, she's probably right.

事实证明，她可能是对的。

"Our country's experiment with debt-financed education went terribly wrong," Warren wrote in a statement. "Instead of getting ahead, millions of student loan borrowers are barely treading water."

沃伦在一份声明中写道:“我们国家用债务资助教育的实验大错特错。”“数以百万计的学生贷款借款人非但没有取得进展，反而举步维艰。”

43 million student borrowers owe the U.S. government $1.5 trillion, according to the U.S. Department of Education. And until now, the department has only offered student loan forgiveness or cancellation to borrowers who meet certain criteria.

据美国教育部的数据，4.300万名学生欠美国政府1.5万亿美元。到目前为止，该部门只向符合一定条件的借款人提供学生贷款减免或取消。

"Maybe it's because they've been working in a public service position or because they become disabled or because they're saying that their school fundamentally cheated them," says Eileen Connor, legal director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School.

哈佛法学院法律服务中心掠夺性学生贷款项目的法律主管艾琳·康纳说:“也许是因为他们一直在公共服务岗位上工作，或者是因为他们成了残疾人，或者是因为他们说他们的学校从根本上欺骗了他们。”

Connor wrote an analysis that found Warren's pitch is both lawful and permissible.

康纳写了一份分析报告，发现沃伦的说辞是合法的，也是允许的。

But is it a good idea? That debate has been raging since last year, when Warren first unveiled her plan. One critique, from Adam Looney of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, says Warren's plan would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the bottom 20% of borrowers by income reaping just 4% of the savings. As such, Looney asks: "Why are those who went to college more deserving of aid than those who didn't?"

但这是个好主意吗?自去年沃伦首次公布她的计划以来，这场辩论就一直在激烈进行。来自城市-布鲁金斯税收政策中心的亚当•鲁尼提出了批评。他说，沃伦的计划将不成比例地惠及富人，收入最低的20%的借款人只能从储蓄中获得4%的收益。因此，鲁尼问道:“为什么上过大学的人比没上过大学的人更有资格获得助学金?”

This authority may be news — and poorly understood — but it isn't remotely new. It dates back half a century, to 1958. and the U.S. government's frenzied response to the Soviet Union launching Sputnik.

这种权威可能是新闻——而且人们对它知之甚少——但它一点也不新鲜。它可以追溯到半个世纪前的1958年，当时美国政府对苏联发射人造卫星做出了疯狂的反应。

Under then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, which poured federal dollars into U.S. colleges and universities — and into students' pockets — all in the name of playing academic catch-up with the Soviets.

在时任总统德怀特·d·艾森豪威尔的领导下，国会通过了《国防教育法》，该法案以追赶苏联的名义，将联邦资金注入美国的高等院校和学生的口袋。

There are a few potential roadblocks. Such a move would more than likely trigger lawsuits. It could also have tax implications. Traditionally, cancelled student debt has been considered taxable income (with some exceptions), and so any effort to erase hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans would require a sympathetic reading of the tax code.

有几个潜在的障碍。这样的举动很可能会引发诉讼。这也可能会对税收产生影响。传统上，取消的学生债务一直被认为是应税收入(除了一些例外)，因此任何消除数千亿美元学生贷款的努力都需要谦虚地阅读税法。

Otherwise, many students with large loans but small, income-based monthly payments could face a sudden and impossible tax bill. Still, a new administration could almost certainly find a legal workaround, and Warren pledged in her announcement "that loan cancellation will not result in any additional tax liability for borrowers."

否则，许多背负巨额贷款、但每月收入较低的学生可能会面临突如其来且不可能的税单。不过，新政府几乎肯定能找到合法的变通办法，沃伦在声明中承诺，“取消贷款不会给借款人带来任何额外的税收负担。”