Two States Will Revoke Your Driver’s License If You Can’t Pay Back Student Loans

[MadImmortalMan]

Suspending driving privileges seems like a counterproductive way to get people to pay, since in most places it directly affects peoples' ability to make money. Especially places like Montana.

[garbon]

Suspending driving privileges seems like a counterproductive way to get people to pay, since in most places it directly affects peoples' ability to make money. Especially places like Montana.

[DontSayBanana]

Suspending driving privileges seems like a counterproductive way to get people to pay, since in most places it directly affects peoples' ability to make money. Especially places like Montana.

And Iowa.  If you don't live in Sioux Center, there ain't squat without a half-hour's drive or more.  Des Moine's probably the sparsest city I've ever been to.

[alfred russel]

Suspending driving privileges seems like a counterproductive way to get people to pay, since in most places it directly affects peoples' ability to make money. Especially places like Montana.

I'm not in favor of suspending drivers licenses over student loans, but this is a quantifiable question and I suspect it would be highly effective. For many people, student loan payment priority would skyrocket to a bit above rent and just below food.

[Martinus]

The fact that you owe a debt to a government body does not make it automatically a public due. Generally, only the likes of tarrifs, taxes and public fees are public dues. Where the state, acting through its bodies, enters into private transactions with individuals, the debts under such transactions are private debts.

If you buy a plot of land from the government and fail to pay the price, it is still a private debt and is enforced in the same way as any other private debt (i.e. through courts). Ancient Romans already understood this division and differentiated between what they called "imperium" (i.e. the state acting as a sovereign) and "dominium" (i.e. the state acting as a proprietor). It is considered a gross violation of due process  and the rule of law if the state uses its imperium to protect its dominium.

So what happens in Poland if you owe the state money?

If the debt is not "public", they sue you in civil court, like anyone else. My law firm does a lot of litigation for or opposite of the state treasury.

That being said we don't have student loans as state education is free. I guess if I lived in one of those barbaric states where access to health care or education was not guaranteed by our constitution, things would be different.

[Martinus]

To be honest, whenever I read about problems with stuff like student loans, Obamacare, gun violence and the like in the US, I am reminded of an old Soviet era joke. The punchline was that the socialist system bravely and boldly faces problems that the rest of the civilised world has never encountered. It seems to me that the US has grown to be that "special"...

[grumbler]

Great joke, Marti.

[dps]

It's all in the delivery.

[DontSayBanana]

And one was... assaulted.  Peanut.  Ha.  Ha ha.

[CountDeMoney]

The joke probably sounds better without any vowels.

[DontSayBanana]

The joke probably sounds better without any vowels.

It's a consonant source of irritation for Polish comedians.

[Jacob]

The joke probably sounds better without any vowels.

I think you're halfway right. It sounds better without any vowels AND without the consonants.