RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.: Don’t like student loan plan? Attack details, not borrowers

It’s not enough to have the “right” position. You also must communicate that position effectively — without showing yourself to be unserious, unreasonable or unlikable.

In America’s latest battle royal — the surprisingly heated national debate over the Biden administration’s plan to forgive a fraction of student loan debt — critics of the plan hit the trifecta.

In a nod to the 45 million Americans who carry federal student loan debt, the White House wants to wipe out $10,000 of debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year and $20,000 for borrowers who qualified for Pell Grants (which go to the economically disadvantaged).

According to an analysis conducted by the Penn Wharton Budget Model — a nonpartisan, research-based initiative that analyzes the economic impact of public policies — President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel even a sliver of student debt could cost as much as $605 billion over 10 years. The analysis also found that — contrary to Republican spin that the debt cancellation will benefit wealthy 30-somethings with useless philosophy degrees from Ivy League universities — about 75 percent of the benefit of the loan forgiveness would fall to households making $88,000 or less per year.

Get some perspective, America! In a country with a gross domestic product of $23 trillion, we’re arguing over nickels and dimes.

We could take the $605 billion that the Biden loan forgiveness initiative is expected to cost and multiply it by four, and it would still not match the $2.7 trillion that economists estimate could end up being added to the national debt to pay President Donald Trump’s corporate welfare giveaway — the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Yet the real value of this debate isn’t on a spreadsheet. Where it has been most useful is in revealing many of its critics to be truly shallow people. Now we know who we’re dealing with and what we’re up against.

You hear conservatives whine about how Biden’s stab at debt forgiveness punishes those who worked hard, played by the rules and “did everything right.” It’s really astounding that the critics never make room for the possibility that some of the folks who could benefit from loan forgiveness also worked hard, played by the rules and did everything right.

Folks such as “Lee from Atlanta” who recently called into “The Michael Smerconish Show” on SiriusXM: Lee was incensed at those attacking the Biden debt forgiveness plan not by criticizing the president or even the universities who keep raising their prices but rather by impugning the virtue and work ethic of student loan recipients. He was especially outraged at critics who keep talking about how they, and their children, have done “everything right,” so it’s not fair that someone else should get any portion of their loans forgiven.

“I’ve done everything right,” Lee told the host. “So everybody who thinks this is like a handout to the wealthy can kiss my” rear.

Imagine how much more productive this debate could have been if this had all been handled differently. What if critics had fired away at the White House, the universities or the plan itself and left the borrowers alone?

I get that many Americans think that forgiving student loans is terribly unfair. Guess what: Life is unfair. No one promised it wouldn’t be.

I borrowed money to go to college and later for graduate school. Not a lot — but some. And I paid it all back, including fees and interest.

Even so, I don’t walk through this world alone. I’m part of the American collective — sharing the cost and the benefit of every government program. Through taxes, I pay for neighborhood public schools even though my kids don’t use them, police pensions even though I’m not a civil servant protected by a union, Social Security for baby boomers even though I am two decades from retirement and farm subsidies such as the $288 billion Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 — even though I live in the suburbs.

That’s a big tab. Do I have any refunds coming? Of course not. No one makes it through life on their own steam. Many things that don’t seem to have a direct impact on me at the moment will no doubt benefit me, and the country, in the long run.

So it would have been nice if those who oppose the idea of forgiving student loan debt had found a way to speak out against what they consider a terrible policy without revealing themselves to be such terrible people.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is crimscribe@icloud.com. His podcast, “Ruben in the Center,” is available through every podcast app.