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scott bessent
Trump Plan to Privatize Student Loans Denounced as ‘Giveaway to Wealthy Insiders’
"By selling parts of the federal student loan portfolio, the Trump administration may seek to unlawfully strip borrowers of their legally guaranteed protections," wrote a group of more than 40 Democratic lawmakers.
Nov 18, 2025
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers in the US House and Senate warned Monday that the Trump administration's reported push to sell off the federal government's massive student portfolio to the private market would be disastrous for borrowers and a "lucrative giveaway" to predatory corporations.
The lawmakers, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) in the House, pointed with alarm to recent reports indicating that Treasury and Education Department officials have met repeatedly with finance industry executives for the purpose of valuing the federal government's student loan portfolio, which is believed to be worth around $1.7 trillion.
"By selling parts of the federal student loan portfolio, the Trump administration may seek to unlawfully strip borrowers of their legally guaranteed protections," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. "As experts have explained, private investors' 'interest would likely be to squeeze as much profit from the repayment as they could.' Those profits would likely come at the expense of the borrower via fewer protections and less generous benefits."
Politico reported last month that the Trump administration is considering selling at least part of the federal government's student loan portfolio to private companies.
Though small relative to the federal portfolio, the private student loan market has an "outsized" impact on borrowers, the advocacy group Protect Borrowers explained earlier this year.
"While private student loans account for roughly 8% of all student loan debt, more than 40% of student-loan-related complaints submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are about private loans," the group said. "Of these private student loan complaints, roughly one-third are from borrowers who are struggling and can’t afford their monthly payment. This is because, unlike federal student loans, private loans lack critical safeguards for students and parents."
In their letter to McMahon and Bessent, the Democratic lawmakers demanded that the Trump administration "immediately cease any efforts to privatize the federal student loan portfolio," arguing that "this sale would be a giveaway to wealthy insiders at the expense of working-class borrowers and taxpayers."
Warren echoed that sentiment in a statement, saying, "Any way you spin it, this sale would be a massive giveaway to giant companies."
"It'd be a tremendous mistake," the senator added.
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Stop Pretending Trump Has a Coherent Economic Strategy
It is bad for the country and the world that policy in the United States is being determined by a man child who has no idea what he is doing beyond stuffing his pockets, but that is the reality.
Oct 28, 2025
It is striking that many people feel the need to claim that President Donald Trump has some coherent economic plan for the country. It’s understandable that Trump’s team likes to pretend that his random ramblings and angry acts of revenge are all part of some grand strategy, but why would anyone not on his payroll play along with this obvious absurdity?
To anyone paying attention, it should be pretty clear that Donald Trump is clueless about the economy. Just to take an obvious example to make the point: Trump has repeatedly promised to lower drug prices by 800, 900, or even 1,500%. As he rightly says, no one thought it was possible.
It wouldn’t be a big deal that he got confused once or twice and forgot that you can’t lower prices by more than 100%, unless you envision drug companies paying people to use their drugs. But Trump has done this repeatedly, over many months.
This tells us two things. First, he really doesn’t have even a basic understanding of arithmetic and percentages. That would be bad in and of itself. After all the president is sometimes directly negotiating deals, and it would be bad if he agreed to something and then had to call back his negotiating partner and tell them he didn’t understand what he had agreed to.
There may be a market for thoughtful pieces describing the grand Trump strategy in major intellectual outlets, but that is yet one more example of market failure.
But the other issue is even more serious. Surely people like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett, Trump’s national economic adviser, understand percentages. But apparently, they are too scared of Trump to explain how they work. Instead, they let him go out week after week and make a fool of himself by making nonsensical promises on lowering drug prices.
This fact is crucial if we are trying to assess whether Trump has a coherent economic strategy. The point is he is obviously confused about many things when it comes to the economy. He seems to think that other countries pay tariffs and send the US checks. He also seems to think that wind and solar power are very expensive sources of energy. And he seems to think that the economy was collapsing when he took office.
All of these claims are 180° at odds with reality, but it is extremely unlikely that his aides would be able to correct him on these or other absurd views that Trump seems to hold. Given how out of touch Trump is with reality and the inability of his aides to correct him on anything, why would anyone think that he has a coherent economic strategy?
As many of us have pointed out, even most hardcore free traders will concede tariffs can serve a useful purpose. They can be used strategically to build up important industries. This is what Joe Biden tried to do when he used tariffs, along with subsidies and regulatory changes, to promote domestic production of advanced computer chips, electric vehicles, batteries, and wind and solar and other forms of clean energy.
But what is the coherence in a tariff policy when some of the highest tariffs, like Trump’s 50% tariff on imported steel, are reserved for intermediate goods that are inputs for other manufacturing industries? How does it make sense to impose an extra 10 percentage point tariff on imports from Canada because Trump didn’t like a television ad they ran during the World Series? And India got whacked with a tariff of 50% on its exports because its president would not support Trump’s drive to get a Nobel Peace Prize.
Anyone trying to weave together these and other tariff decisions by Trump, along with many other economic decisions he has made since taking office, is really stretching if they think they can find anything coherent. It is bad for the country and the world that policy in the United States is being determined by a man child who has no idea what he is doing beyond stuffing his pockets, but that is the reality.
There may be a market for thoughtful pieces describing the grand Trump strategy in major intellectual outlets, but that is yet one more example of market failure. There ain’t nothing there.
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Treasury Chief Bessent Says He's a 'Soybean Farmer' Who Has 'Felt the Pain' of Trump Tariffs
"Only a right-wing elitist would think that owning a bunch of farmland makes you a farmer," said one critic. "No, farming makes you a farmer, Scott. You’re an investor and landowner."
Oct 27, 2025
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—a large landowner and former hedge fund manager worth north of half a billion dollars—faced widespread derision Sunday after claiming that he's a soybean farmer who, like actual farmers, is suffering from President Donald Trump's tariff war.
Asked by ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz about the apparent contradiction between Trump's claim to care about American farmers and the pain inflicted upon them by his trade war—especially with China, which is boycotting US agricultural exports—Bessent said: "Well, Martha, I'm actually a soybean farmer. So... I have felt this pain, too."
Bessent then tried to blame China for slashing US soybean imports and "using American farmers, who are amongst President Trump's biggest supporters."
The treasury secretary also mentioned the double whammy of tariffs and this season's bumper soybean crop, which he said have created a "perfect storm."
After Trump slapped 30% tariffs on Chinese imports in May, Beijing retaliated with measures including stopping all purchases of US soybeans. Before the trade war, a quarter of the soybeans—the nation’s number one export crop—produced in the United States were exported to China. Trump’s tariffs mean American soybean growers can’t compete with countries like Brazil, the world’s leading producer and exporter of the staple crop and itself the target of a 50% US tariff.
Critics swiftly pounced on Bessent's comments, with one actual farmer pointing out on X that the centimillionaire "owns up to $25 million worth of corn and soybean farmland... and earns as much as $1 million a year in rental income from the land."
Some social media users sardonically shared an artificial intelligence-generated image of Bessent standing in a field wearing overalls. Others posted a photo of John Ravenel House, the historic Charleston mansion he sold earlier this year for $18.5 million plus $3 million for furniture and fixtures—reportedly the highest price ever in the South Carolina city.
Spencer Ross, an associate professor at the Lowell Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts, noted that Bessent "promised—and failed—to divest his "$25 million of rent-seeking soybean property."
"I cannot imagine another farmer considering [Bessent's investments] actively being a 'farmer,'" Ross added before referencing the last president who actually grew crops. "I'm fairly certain Jimmy Carter wouldn't."
Author and activist Tim Wise quipped on social media: "Only a right-wing elitist would think that owning a bunch of farmland makes you a farmer. No, farming makes you a farmer, Scott. You’re an investor and landowner."
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