Sure, government action to address the student loan debt crisis would ease a massive national burden, spur economic growth and help secure a brighter future for millions of Americans, but have you considered the damage such a move would do to… those people’s morals? Yes, that’s the real issue, as Fox News commentator Dave Ramsey explained, noting that when someone signs a contract, there is “an obligation to pay that money back.” Ramsey has apparently never heard of bankruptcy or concepts like “renegotiation” or “extenuating circumstances.”

In this segment John and Brett discuss how Ramsey - and others on the right - are happy to twist themselves in knots to avoid government action that will actually help average Americans. Sure, people may be able to eat, pay their rent and get medical treatment, but what about the MORAL HAZARD??? As Brett points out, the real moral hazard is the unfair system that creates this damning cycle in the first place and makes higher education so astronomically expensive that anyone without a trust fund has to mortgage decades of their futures just to get a college degree.

After John notes that Ramsey engages in a common right-wing tactic of saying he supports helping people but just not in any of the ways that have been suggested or ever would be suggested, Brett further observes that Ramsey and his fellow Republicans adopted a decidedly different level of concern about taking financial responsibility and “moral hazards” when the government was handing over trillions of taxpayer dollars to bail out the big banks during the financial crisis.