Besides forcing young college graduates into a decades-long penurious existence as veritable indentured servants to institutions of higher learning, there's another downside to our nation's $1 trillion student debt: it's stopping young people from starting business. Businesses! The lifeblood of Republicanism!

Why, it's easy to sit back and say, "Screw those kids and their student debt. They, as idiot 18-year-olds, signed up to pay outrageous sums for college. They, as idiot 18-year-olds, signed the papers for all those loans. They, as idiot 18-year-olds, failed to lobby Congress well enough to prevent them from making student loans impossible to discharge in bankruptcy. And they, as idiot 21-year-olds, are now unable to land jobs at Goldman Sachs that would be sufficiently remunerative to repay those loans. That's their fault. Plus, I own the bank. I want my money." Fine. But look, Bob, you're in the Chamber of Commerce. All this debt is killing entrepreneurship. That's a buzzword that even the most coldhearted Republican bastard can respond to. From Bloomberg:

Former students hobbled by a collective $1 trillion in education loans can be hindered in expanding or forming small businesses and creating jobs for themselves and others. While self-employment among those 65 years old and over increased 24 percent in 2010 from 2005, it fell 19 percent among individuals 25 and under in the same period, according to the Small Business Administration...

Almost 23 percent of 9,500 respondents stated they had put off starting a business because of monthly student debt payments owed to private lenders, according to a 2013 survey by the Young Invincibles, a nonprofit youth advocacy organization

More student debt= fewer young people starting businesses= more angry young people with no respect for the entrepreneurs who are the real heroes of America= fewer Republican Party members down the road. Everything seems to be right on track, to hell.

[Bloomberg. Photo of some poor anonymous debt-riddled grad: Getty]