From Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren to Kirsten Gillibrand to … lots of others, Democratic candidates in 2020 seem to have plans to lower the cost of education and make it possible for more Americans to attend college without drowning under a mountain of debt. Democrats recognize that education is critical to obtaining a good job, and that the cost of education in 2019 means that students are often saddled with loans that can not only erase the benefits of that education for years, but take those new college graduates out of the market for homes, or restrict their ability to move. In short, high costs for college not only means misery for graduates, it harms American companies at every level by depriving them both of workers and consumers.
So, naturally, Donald Trump is making it worse.
While Trump’s tax break for billionaires is just that—a plan that awards Trump himself tens of millions in tax breaks and means that some of the largest, most profitable companies in the country pay no tax at all—it punishes working class and middle class students. As The New York Times reports, students attending college on scholarships or financial aid packages are being taxed at a rate higher than Trump pays on his eight-figure income, with rates going up to 37%. That means that some of the students who most needed the money the most, but who made it into college on academic or athletic scholarships, or those who assembled an aid package that let them barely climb over the cost hurdle … are finding their mailboxes full with bills from the IRS. And, unlike Trump, they can’t get away with ignoring tax law.
View the complete May 19 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.