Top Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have announced major plans to cancel student debt. This used to be an issue candidates would avoid — now, it's front and center for the 2020 election.
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00:00Between my brother and I, we have right around $200,000, maybe a little more, $200,000 in debt.
00:07I think I got like $40,000 in debt in just like two years.
00:12I never thought that I'd be able to pay it off, I swear to God.
00:15A society which is less unequal, which is more equal, which has greater opportunities,
00:28or greater equality of opportunities, is also a society which is better at long-term growth.
00:34To put it in perspective, that is greater than the total GDP of most countries in the world.
00:46That's an enormous, enormous burden.
00:48Significantly greater than total credit card debt in the United States.
00:52It's about $600 billion greater than total credit card debt.
01:05Well, there are many, many different types of precedents to this.
01:08The biggest and probably the most dramatic one was when, after the Second World War,
01:13when Germany's debt was written off.
01:15Look what happened to the banks in 2008 financial crisis.
01:18Who caused the crisis?
01:20I mean, a trillion of dollars were written off in debt on the grounds that this was essential
01:25to keep the economy going.
01:27There are many, many other examples of this kind.
01:35The Great Depression
01:49I favor the kind of free public school, at least for public universities and so on, and education,
01:54because education is a public good, and public goods are to be supplied in the world.
01:59And also creates a fairer and more just society,
02:03and a society with less kind of social tensions and stresses for human beings.