Say Anything

The debt slavery brought about by the government-created higher education bubble is reaching well into the retirement years for a growing number of Americans.

According to government data, compiled by the Treasury Department at the request of SmartMoney.com, the federal government is withholding money from a rapidly growing number of Social Security recipients who have fallen behind on federal student loans. From January through August 6, the government reduced the size of roughly 115,000 retirees’ Social Security checks on those grounds. That’s nearly double the pace of the department’s enforcement in 2011; it’s up from around 60,000 cases in all of 2007 and just 6 cases in 2000.

The amount that the government withholds varies widely, though it runs up to 15%. Assuming the average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker of $1,234, that could mean a monthly haircut of almost $190.

Maybe it’s time to admit that higher education policy which has so inflated the cost of a degree that students can’t pay off their debt even before they quality for Social Security is bad policy.

But this is what happens when the government distorts markets with subsidies, and the consumer is disconnected from the cost of the service being consumed. Government promoting employer-backed, third-party health insurance with tax protections has resulted in a health care costs bubble. Government promoting home ownership with freely-given, taxpayer-secured subprime loans led to the housing bubble. And government promotion of higher education with subsidized student loan financing has created a higher education bubble.

The root cause of all these problem is government bent on social engineering.