I like your rhetoric of the liberal POV as actually conservative - "trickle down". But it's not working.
Those with just Bachelors degrees still make almost twice as much as those without (average 38k vs 64k). And their median net worth is more than 2x those with just HS diplomas (74k vs 198k). Arguing that the poor should help bail out those more wealthy than them is extremely regressive any way you slice it.
EDIT: To those saying 'why not just tax the rich more': That comes at the cost of (again) more equal and broad uses for that money - that doesn't make a regressive policy less regressive it just pushes the can down the road. We're talking about a 1.7T bailout for just 12% of Americans with far higher than average earning potential.
Well, yeah, liberal and progressive positions are generally opposed.
FWIW I actually think you make a good point, but it's ignoring the fact that the ultra-rich are grossly (I'd argue an order of magnitude) undertaxed right now.
Couldn't agree more on that point. I don't however think earmarking 1.7T for a very select 12% of Americans that have a far higher than average earning potential fixes the problem with the policy though. That 1.7T could be used in far broader more equal ways.
You can have the rich pay for undergraduate degrees instead of the poor - as you have conveniently assumed. A rather hilarious assumption given that tax slabs for the poor are the lowest.
Pitting one class of poor/middle class against the other is a fairly well known conservative tactic. Intraclass "warfare" is what conservatives want to focus on, instead of the big elephant- interclass "warfare".
