来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2022年4月8日
President Biden blundered this week with his extension of the pause on student loan payments through Aug. 31. What was a needed emergency measure at the start of the pandemic is no longer justified.
拜登总统本周犯了一个错误，他将暂停偿还学生贷款的期限延长至8月31日。在大流行开始时需要采取的紧急措施现在已不再有存在的适当理由。
It is hard to make an argument that college graduates are struggling right now. The unemployment rate for Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher is a mere 2 percent. There is a near-record number of job openings. It’s a similar story for Americans who took a few college courses but either didn’t graduate or left with an associate’s degree. The unemployment rate for Americans with “some college” is 3 percent. That’s down dramatically from an unemployment rate of more than 15 percent in April 2020 for people with some college and more than 6 percent when Mr. Biden was sworn in as president.
现在很难证明大学毕业生正在苦苦挣扎。拥有学士学位或更高学位的美国人的失业率仅为2%。职位空缺数量接近历史最高纪录。对于上过几次大学课程，但要么没能毕业、要么拿到了肄业证书的美国人来说，情况也差不多。“大学肄业”的美国人的失业率是3%。这与2020年4月大学肄业生失业率超过15%，以及拜登宣誓就任总统时超过6%相比，已经大幅下降。
They were in a far different situation in the spring of 2020 and even early 2021, as Americans of many walks of life struggled to find work or had to stay home for health reasons or to care for children or other relatives. Suspending student loan payments then was a way to get extra cash into people’s hands quickly. That need, thankfully, is no longer pressing.
大学毕业生现在的处境与之前大不相同，2020年春天，甚至2021年初，因为各行各业的美国人很难找到工作，或者因为健康原因或照顾孩子或其他亲属而不得不呆在家里。当时，暂缓偿还学生贷款是让人们迅速获得额外现金的一种方式。谢天谢地，现在这种需求已不再那么迫切。
The White House tried to cast this latest extension as necessary, given how inflation is burdening families. Rising prices of gas, rent, food and cars are a hardship, but forgiving interest on student loans for four more months offers the biggest benefits to people who have earned degrees in medicine and law. These people go on to have lucrative careers. Meanwhile, the 64 percent of Americans who do not have a college degree don’t benefit at all from Biden’s pause on loan repayments.
考虑到通货膨胀给美国家庭带来的负担，白宫试图将这一最新的延长期限说成是必要的。汽油、房租、食品和汽车价格的上涨是一个难题，但对获得医学和法律学位的人来说，他们是再减免四个月的学生贷款利息的最大受益群体。这些人继续从事赚大钱的职业。与此同时，64%没有大学学位的美国人根本没有从拜登暂停偿还贷款中受益。
This extension also comes with a substantial price tag: about $20 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That’s nearly the entire budget of the Pell Grant program, which specifically aids the neediest students with paying for college.
根据负责任联邦预算委员会的数据，这一延期还需要付出相当大的代价：大约200亿美元。这几乎是佩尔助学金计划的全部预算，该计划专门帮助最贫困的学生支付大学学费。
It’s telling that it wasn’t just Republicans blasting Mr. Biden for this move. Prominent Democratic economists also expressed exasperation.
抨击拜登此举的不只是共和党人，这很说明问题。著名的民主党经济学家也表达了愤怒。
“Wherever one stands on student debt relief, this approach is regressive, uncertainty creating, untargeted and inappropriate at a time when the economy is overheated,” tweeted former U.S. treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, a Democrat.
前美国财政部长、民主党人劳伦斯·萨默斯在推特上说：“无论谁支持学生债务减免，这种方式都是倒退的，会产生不确定性，没有针对性，在经济过热的时候也不合适。”
This extension was about the politics of an election year when control of both houses of Congress is up for grabs. Democrats, including Mr. Biden, campaigned in 2020 on helping to make college more affordable and canceling at least $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower. With Mr. Biden’s domestic agenda largely stalled, many of his fellow Democrats urged the president to extend loan payment forbearance that is expected to impact about 41 million adults ahead of the midterm elections. The political calculation was an obvious one. But it did little to help the stressed-out Americans who need aid the most.
这一延长与选举年政治有关，今年，民主共和两党将争夺国会参众两院的控制权。包括拜登在内的民主党人在2020年的竞选活动中提出，要帮助降低上大学的价格，并取消每个借款人至少1万美元的学生贷款债务。拜登的国内议程基本上停滞不前，他的许多民主党同僚敦促总统延长贷款偿还延期，预计这将在中期选举前影响约4100万成年人。政治盘算是显而易见的。但它对那些最需要援助的压力重重的美国人几乎没有帮助。