Economist Art Laffer on Tuesday panned Sen. Bernie Sanders' plan to eliminate student debt as a "silly, silly proposal" and warned its costs would be catastrophic.
"It would cause a huge collapse in the U.S. economy," Laffer told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "The very people he is proposing to help, it will hurt them enormously. Just remember, you get rid of that $1.3 billion student loan debt, that goes right on top of the national debt, which is just changing whose hands are holding."
Sanders, I-Vt., said his proposed bill, to be sponsored in the House by Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., "forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the 'crime' of getting a college education."
The bill, Laffer said, would also entice many people to incur the costs of college who should not be there.
"They should be in trade school, learning something productive in the labor market, and they are not," he said. "This is not a time to be rewarding additional people going into college where they are not going to learn very much, and they will be kicked out of the labor force, going into huge amounts of debt."
He added he does not think there is an economist who would agree with Sanders' proposal.
The plan differs from a rival proposal offered by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whose plan calls for student debt to be eliminated but contains an income cap.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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