If you pay back your loans responsibly, and another doesn't and gets their balance forgiven, who's the fool?

> all bs moralistic about the responsibility of paying debts back

It's dishonorable to not pay back money you borrowed. I'm sure if you loaned someone money, and they said "bs" when you expected repayment, you'd be very put out.

P.S. I've had people who've stolen money from me contact me years later wanting to do business together. I don't understand modern morality, or how they'd imagine I'd ever work with them again.

I think the basic disconnect you're running into here is that for many people the government-backed educational loan establishment is not "someone" worthy of any moral consideration, but rather just a poorly-constructed piece of political machinery that only exists because of the failings of the government in regards to public education.

Every person with a loan got it of their own free will and signed a contract asserting of their own free will that they were going to pay it back.

The fact that the promise was made to the taxpayers doesn't make it honorable to break one's word.

It's also a major insult to every person who worked hard and paid back their loan.

This forgiveness program is a classic "moral hazard".

There's another disconnect here: you're treating contracts as a moral imperative, rather than as a civil agreement with failure clauses to be rationally considered. The government does the latter; why should an individual who makes a contract with the government treat it differently?

What part of the contract says: "if you don't want to pay back the loan, no problem, we'll just forgive it!" ?

I've never heard of a loan contract that says that.

> If you pay back your loans responsibly, and another doesn't and gets their balance forgiven, who's the fool?

Neither?

What was the purpose of paying back the loan? I think it's foolish to give away large sums of money for no effect.