[tarmon]

Arguably taxpayers also get to choose who they vote for. You can argue about the effectiveness of the democratic process in the US but it feels a tad disingenuous to suggest we have no responsibilities in this system we are all apart of.

[kazinator]

A political ballot doesn't carry enough bits of information for you to express how you would like to see student loans administered, and every other thing you'd like to influence.

In the first place, a government like that of the US is a massive bureaucracy, only a tiny fraction of which is actually elected. No matter who is elected, pretty much the same people will be administering student loans.

[malandrew]

Of all tax units filing income taxes, 76.4 million tax units pay no federal income taxes. That's 44.4% of all tax units.

That's approximately 44.4% of potential votes by people who likely choose politicians that are spending the money of those who do pay taxes. And of those that pay income taxes, a few pay the disproportionate share of those taxes.

So basically, many people who are tax filers but not tax payers are getting to choose who they vote for, but others are left shouldering all the tax responsibility for the bad policies of those politicians. These tax filers might be paying other taxes like state and local sales tax, but those taxes are pretty much all state and local and irrelevant when we are talking about federal loan programs.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/tax-units-ze...

* "A tax unit is an individual, or a married couple, that files a tax return or would file a tax return if their income were high enough, along with all dependents of that individual or married couple."