Ilhan Omar Compares Students to Veterans in Call to Cancel Student Debt

Ilhan Omar Veterans

Representative Ilhan Omar, the radical left-wing Democrat, compared students to veterans in a tweet that called for the cancellation of student debt.

Students are Equivalent to Veterans Now It Seems!

Omar tweeted a quote from an article by Will Fischer, who advocated wiping out student debt in the same way the GI Bill did in 1944, which allowed veterans to obtain a free education.

“Imagine what it would do for our country and those who live here if we were to take the ethos behind the original G.I. Bill and apply it to everybody—canceling all student debt and making public colleges, universities, and vocational schools tuition-free,” the quote reads.

The original bill was designed to help veterans who had served in the Second World War reintegrate into military life and reward them for their bravery.

“Before the war, college and homeownership were, for the most part, unreachable dreams for the average American,” but the GI Bill changed all that, notes the Department of Veterans Affairs:

Thanks to the GI Bill, millions who would have flooded the job market instead opted for education. In the peak year of 1947, Veterans accounted for 49 percent of college admissions. By the time the original GI Bill ended on July 25, 1956, 7.8 million of 16 million World War II Veterans had participated in an education or training program. Millions also took advantage of the GI Bill’s home loan guaranty. From 1944 to 1952, VA backed nearly 2.4 million home loans for World War II Veterans.

Understandably, veterans weren’t impressed with Omar comparing the debt of normal students to what veterans had to go through to earn their ride through college.

Chris Manning, a veteran of Afghanistan who ran for Congress in 2018, smacked down Omar in a tweet. As a recipieint of the GI Bill, he said it wasn’t given to him for free, but “was earned by agreeing to serve my country for six years and to put my life at risk as an infantryman in Afghanistan. It wasn’t something just given to me with nothing expected in return.” He told Omar not to “cheapen our sacrifice w/ this comparison.”

Omar is Totally Wrong About Student Debt

There is a debate that needs to be had in this country when it comes to student debt. Why is it that universities and colleges are allowed to charge students through the nose for tuition and massively inflate their prices above what would be the market average with no consequences? Why are banks allowed to rope 18-year-olds into one of the biggest financial decisions they will ever make when they haven’t even left high school yet? Either the government should tightly control how much they are allowed to charge and create some form of graduate tax system (as student loans basically function in the UK), or stop backing student loan debt and let the market perform how it should.

The solution to the student debt crisis isn’t what Omar and Sen. Sanders and others are proposing. To wipe it off completely will only punish those who scrimped and saved to pay into the system who won’t get any rebates, as well as shafting the ordinary taxpayer who may have not even gone to college in the first place. Free tuition won’t work either – the UK had free tuition up until 1998, but it was feasible only because a small proportion of the population went to higher education establishments. If you encourage a high percentage of the population to get degrees, there’s no way the government would be able to fund it without going into further debt or hiking up taxes to unreasonable levels.

Like with many issues this country faces, the left may be able to diagnose problems, but they have no ability to fix any of them!

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