by Micah J. Fleck
The Democrats are now not the only political party making lofty promises about student tuition issues. At a campaign event in Columbus, OH this past week, Donald Trump promised a loan forgiveness program that will be “more generous than any of the existing government plans,” reports Time.
The report continued with the proposed details of the plan:
Graduates would pay 12.5% of their income for 15 years before the remaining balance would be forgiven. Trump also said he turn a “confusing maze” of repayment plans into one simple income-driven option. Democrats and consumer advocates have also pushed for reducing the number of repayment plans to make it less confusing for borrowers.
“The debt should not be an albatross around their necks for the rest of their lives, and that’s what it is,” Trump said in the speech. “We’re gonna work it out.”
However, as with everything, the lunch isn’t free. The devil is in the details, as Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson would say, and the devil of this plan is in the form of thousands of dollars in taxes owed to the IRS:
It’s worth noting, though, that under current plans, any debt that’s forgiven is considered taxable income, so borrowers could still be left with a tab to the IRS in thousands of dollars, depending on how much is forgiven.
Trump continues to sound like a Democrat the closer he gets to election day.
