Government should not be help people by offering them debt with improper underwriting. All it does is screw up prices and long term supply/demand curves such as with education and homes, and screws future taxpayers for the benefit of current taxpayers.

If the government wants to encourage more people to become truck drivers, then the government can start paying its drivers more, improve minimum working conditions for truck drivers, and pay truck driving schools directly to offer free truck driving qualifications.

Paying its own drivers makes sense. The second two are straight out of the ATA’s playbook for industry capture by large incumbents. The part of the supply curve that’s responding is owner-operators. They don’t benefit from working-condition mandates or driver’s schools; the large incumbents do. The second two advantage them over owner-operators, and could conceivably exacerbate the problem.

Is the goal for society to have more truck drivers? Or is the goal for the government to help increase the number of owner operators?

If being an owner operator is a good business idea, then a lender will do the proper underwriting and extend a loan. If a lender does not, then that means the truck driving business is not lucrative enough, and so people should be looking elsewhere to sell their labor.

Smooth logistics. When Congress intervenes, it’s to alleviate supply-chain snarls.

> If being an owner operator is a good business, then a lender will do the proper underwriting and extend a loan

Why do you pre-suppose a functioning lending market for independent truck drivers? A 50% increase in owner-operators could easily saturate what used to be a cottage financing industry before being noticed.

The core point is we tend to think of truckers as employees from a distance. That shapes our policy responses, e.g. knee-jerk assuming the problem is pay or working conditions. It’s not just that because many truckers aren’t simple employees.