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Biden says he is forgiving $5 billion in student debt for another 74,000 Americans
(www.cbsnews.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Let's do all of it, and put in place a solution for all future student loans. They are robbing us blind right now, and costing future generations a chance at a debt free life.
He did do a lot more! I mentioned it in another comment a week ago, but look into what his save plan does. Lowers costs, lowers interest, increases forgiveness, etc. etc.
Save plan lowered my effective interest rate to around 2%. I'll still have to pay a lot over the next 20 years, and if the tax bomb is not removed it will be another 100,000. However my cash flow is much improved and how much I pay total has decreased drastically.
Still fighting with my student loan servicer to set me up on the plan correctly, but that is a different can of worms. The servicers need to have their contracts nullified for how terrible they have been.
Definitely better than a kick in the teeth, but it’s a shame the Supreme Court nixed the bigger loan forgiveness plan. I’m glad to see Biden is still trying to live up to his promise as much as he can given the obstructionist Congress and Supreme Court.
Here in Australia, our student loans are given and managed by the Australian Tax Office, and while they technically don’t accrue interest they are “indexed” according to inflation (CPI specifically) once per year, every year. Our repayments just come out of or income like regular income taxes - that means that the repayments are tax-deductible too. We usually get indexed around 2-3% per year but last year it was almost 8% which hit really hard. Most degrees also fall under the Higher Education Commonwealth Support (HECS) program which drastically reduces their total cost too.
Yeah, but that's progressive...
We keep electing democrats that think fixing something at once would be too disruptive.
So they stretch the smallest amount of progress as long as they can, even if that doesn't make up for damage Republicans do.
Its been like 80 years since moderate Dems told FDR that it was too soon for universal healthcare and Americans had to wait a few more years to make sure it's a good idea.
And they're still fucking saying they need to look into it more. It'll never be time. Student Debt relief shows every indication that it's going to be the same thing.
This may be a shock to you, but there are other branches of government in the US. One of which is not elected and that's the one that recently struck down Biden's HEROS plan that would have eliminated $460B in student loan debt.
https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/supreme-court-strikes-down-student-loan-forgiveness-program
Good thing we elected a career politician who said his decades of Senate experience meant he could get Republicans in the Senate and house to vote for progressive legislation...
Oh, that's right...
I forgot Dems had the Senate, House, and presidency for 2 years....
But that highly experienced career politician told us trying to change even a single politicians mind (even if they were in his own party) was an impossible task so he wouldn't even try.
Welp, at least we're not running him again since the whole reason he said he was the man for the job turned out to be something he was lying about...
That would seem like a terrible plan
How does having the House and the Senate for 2 years affect the Supreme Court's decision?
He said he could work with Republicans to get bipartisan legislation passed. And he has, including the Electoral Count Reform Act.
In addition to bipartisan legislation he has also passed progressive legislation, but as everyone expected that was along party lines.
During those 2 years Manchin and Sinema weren't actually Dems and voted against most major progressive legislation, only voting for minor stuff if progressive.
I'm not a fan of him either. Though he hasn't done much of what I've wanted, he's been more progressive than I expected. Tbh it sounds like he would have been better off politically if he hadn't touched student loans. Im finding other progressives aren't realistic on this issue and do not seem to want to encourage behavior they want from politicians. Way to encourage other politicians not to make attempts like this. Biden would be getting raked over the coals less if he had done nothing. That doesn't mean dont be critical when its warranted, but don't expect anybody to take you seriously when you claim he didn't try. Were you a fly on the wall listening in? You not being there doesn't mean conversations didnt happen. Its an unfounded claim that doesn't acknowledge the good changes he HAS accomplished. You just don't care about those because you weren't personally impacted. No different than every other selfish voter who gave us Trump.
You are foolish if you think individual politicians can make more progressive shit happen on their own. So many "progressives" only care about the end results and how they are personally helped. That makes you no different than any other voter and its also why we will never make progress until people like you cut the crap and grow up. Incremental progress is still progress. The only time it is not is when its something like setting up a healthcare program and underfunding it so bad it makes the masses hate it. In cases where shit is already fucked, making it slightly less fucked is a good thing.
Personally I actually want politicians to move left. So I celebrate when they make steps in that direction. You are playing into exactly what the Supreme Court was trying to accomplish with its bs decision. The point was to hurt him politically. If you do not reward politicians for moving left and are extra critical of any who make attempts to do what you want, you are only telling them not to bother.
He wasn't my choice but he's what we have. We may as well try to use him instead of throwing a tantrum about what could have been. Most neolibs wouldn't have done anything and he surprised me when he did. The primaries are the place for idealism. The general is the place for realism.
Oh, but what more could you ask of him? He tried once and the Supreme Court said no, and that's all he can do. Sure, when Trump wanted to ban Muslims from the country and the Supreme Court told him no he just changed one or two small details and issued the same order again and again and again until the Court gave up, but Biden couldn't possibly do something like that here because it wouldn't be very polite. You don't want a rude president, do you?
/s
Biden has passed a lot of bipartisan laws. This is a dumb comment.
I’m not sure why this comment is so controversial. It’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve been talking about this now for forever and almost nothing is happening. It’s wonderful that 74,000 people get some relief but that’s a drop in the ocean. I want it badly but I’ve almost accepted the fact that it’s probably not going to happen.
74,000 in addition to the 3.4 million people who already had student loans forgiven. That's not nothing.
Including me under the TEPSLF. I was on track to hopefully finish paying off my loans at age 63, but with the TEPSLF it counted the ten years I had already done so they were forgiven after the ten years of public service work I did.
Thank you House/Senate Dems and president Biden!
Sure, I agree the extra 3.4 million people have gotten relief or forgiveness is not nothing, but out of the 45.3 million people (quick Google search) with student loan debt that’s only 13%. It’s great, we’re on the path, but 87% of people still haven’t seen any kind of help, and were drug along being promised help for the last 3 years.
"It's only 13% and not 100%, so it doesn't count!"
The Supreme Court blocked his attempt last year to forgive debt for another 43 million people, which was set to take effect before repayments started back up. He's trying to help but is being blocked by conservatives who want him to fail so Trump can be reelected.
The supreme court stopped them forgiving 460 billion a wide acope. Instead, his admin has forgiven 141 billion in a narrower, but still huge, scope. Its far, far more than any other admin has ever forgiven, and still going.
If 30% of "an ocean" is just "a drop," thats one hell of a drop.
Hell, if he had just promised to forgive the equivalent of 10k like he intended on the campaign trail, his admin would be more than half way there, and climbing.
3.4 million people total have had their debts forgiven (so far) out of a potential 45.3 million. That’s around 7.5% of all people who held student loans.
NOAA estimates that the oceans hold around 1.335 billion cubic kilometres of water, which is around 1.335 sextillion litres (1.335e18 litres) or 353 quintillion gallons (3.53e17 gallons). Estimates put annual human water usage at around 4 trillion m^2 per year (4 quadrillion litres or 1.057 quadrillion gallons).
If the student loans forgiven were merely ‘a drop in the ocean’, that ‘drop’ would contain 100 quintillion litres or 26.4 quintillion gallons. That ‘drop’ would weigh 100 quadrillion tonnes and would be twenty-five times the amount of water all human being use globally every year. Dumped over the contiguous United States, that would form a layer of water 12.5km (7.8miles) deep.
That’s a hell of a drop.
Sources:
This burn is so wet, I'm literally drowning just seeing it.
Lots of moderates want to keep copying the Republican party, even the part where no one is allowed to question any politician who has the right letter next to their name.
They think it's better to live with the problems and not talk about them let alone solve them.
Which is pretty much the whole problem.
You're allowed to ask questions. You just don't like the answers.
In this case, the answer is that debt forgiveness is happening, but you weren't paying attention.
There's 1.77 trillion in student loan debt...
https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/
Do you think enough is being done?
Especially when every year a shit ton of students enter college into the same shit show?
I couldn't find a source for how much total Biden has forgiven, but I'd be shocked if the percentage doesn't start with a decimal point.
Before you can forgive $1.77 trillion, you need to forgive $136 billion.
80 years ago moderates said before we could all have universal healthcare, we should settle for orphans, widows, and those with disabilities.
And that in a few years we might get it for everyone else after they looked into it.
Couple generations later and moderates are still saying they're looking into it...
Why do you think Student Loan debt will be different?
Medicare covers everyone over 65, not just orphans, widows, and people with disabilities.
The reason we didn't have universal health care 80 years ago is that it wasn't popular 80 years ago. Even today, support for single payer is shaky, depending on the details.
Yeah, ok...
People kept voting FDR into office so often we had to put a limit on how many times a person could be president because his main campaign issue was unpopular....
Medicare was popular because it was specifically aimed at retired people.
It also did not pass under FDR. In fact, FDR thought health care was too controversial to include in his Social Security proposal.
Medicare had to wait until 1965, when it was signed by Lyndon Johnson.
Are you serious? There's a big difference. Anything related to student loans already has a big hurdle in that it effects a segment of the population and not the entire population. For that reason, its not going to be the #1 issue for many voters. In situations like that, incremental progress is good because its not a prioritized issue simply due to numbers. It sucks but its true. The list of things we need to fix is huge. Things fewer people prioritize need any help they can get. Same reason enshrining abortion rights wasn't a priority. People thought it was already settled law and were less likely to prioritize it if they weren't personally effected.
In the case of healthcare it artifically created a similar problem, which was probably the intent. Giving some people healthcare makes them prioritize it less, which is why there hasn't been much movement (though pretending nothing has changed is disingenuous, even requiring insurance companies to cover pre existing conditions is a big deal). It isn't even a matter of individual voters being against giving other people healthcare despite having their own, though theres certainly some of that. Its about the fact that a voter is not likely to find a politician they agree with on every position. Let alone several for various offices. The things they are willing to compromise on disagreeing about will be things they prioritize less.
It's north of $136B in total. If you couldn't find that, you may not have looked today, as it's definitely been reported. I'll let you work out the percentage, but it certainly doesn't begin with a decimal point.
Prepare to be shocked. It's close to 8%.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/19/biden-to-forgive-4point9-billion-in-student-debt-for-73600-borrowers.html
Also, if you couldn't find a source then you either didn't actually try to find a source, or you aren't smart enough to google "how much student loan debt Biden has forgiven." The answer was in the first result.