Finally, after years and years of pressing the issue in election after election, action has now been taken on student loan forgiveness. College and university loans now account for more than 40% of outstanding consumer debt in the U.S., outpacing the amounts owed on motor vehicle loans, for example, by more than $477 billion. Ponder that fact for a moment.
I have argued since (what year is this?) that our economy is hampered by the millions of people redirecting income towards student loan payments rather than doing what works best in a consumer-driven economy. The fact is if someone is struggling to pay off their student loans, they are not buying things that workers are making in factories or assembly lines. The tax revenue from such transactions is lost.
We know education is a great investment for the future of the nation, and it should be viewed as a most valued commodity. I very much disagreed with shackling the ones who have the ability to learn and then turn their knowledge into ideas for the betterment of society, with lifetime financial burdens.
So I very much applaud President Biden for directing the Education Department to forgive $10,000 in federal student loan debt for nearly all U.S. borrowers, an unprecedented decision that will affect millions of borrowers with immediate financial relief. This action will now forgive $10,000 for every federal student loan borrower who earns less than $125,000 annually. The administration is also canceling up to $20,000 for those student borrowers who received Pell Grants, applying the same income cap.
Here’s what the plan includes.
$10,000 in debt forgiveness for all federal borrowers…Federal borrowers who earn less than $125,000 and did not receive a Pell Grant will be eligible to have $10,000 of their student loan balances forgiven. This will likely eliminate the balances of at least 15 million borrowers.
$20,000 debt reduction for Pell Grant recipients…Millions of borrowers who received Pell Grants during college and meet the administration’s income requirements will see 20,000 removed from their balances. Data shows around 7 million students receive Pell Grants each year.
Extends pandemic-related pause on student loan payments…The administration is also extending the federal moratorium on student loan payments for a sixth and final time. Payments will resume in January 2023, concluding the pause which has spanned more than two years and two administrations.
While I advocated for the move taken by the Biden White House for a portion of loans to be canceled, I still hold very much to the realization that incentivizing education by having students pay a share of the burden makes sense. When personal effort is required to gain an education a more strict adherence to the books results.
When some voters feel a resume is to be snickered at and expertise is not something to be valued we need to be reminded of what took Americans to the moon. It was not just rocket thrust, but the science and technology that allowed our flag to be placed on the moon. That effort was made possible by students first sitting in a classroom and learning.
In late 2021 a shocking amount of money was spent on our national defense. The House passed an authorization bill costing $768 billion. Certainly then, a person in middle America should feel the federal government can lessen the student loan burden by $10,000. It can be correctly argued that a keen mind and skills learned are as valuable to a democracy as a missile.
Thanks go to President Biden and his administration for this outcome today.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
this is total horse rot. Deke and his buddy at the Cap Times Paul Fanlund wonder why dumbs are losing rural areas and blue collar workers. Exhibit A. Anyone who takes advantage of this should have “IMBECILE” imprinted in red on their credit reports. So, you were above the age of majority and couldn’t comprehend that loans must be paid back? I hope you aren’t involved in scheduling trains on tracks or planes in the air! How much was borrowed for spring break in Cancun or for a nice car? I get borrowing for college, I had to do it to and I paid it back on time, gratefully. My Dad worked in a paper mill, but the money went to provide for the family. There was no extra for my school. Oh, but we were apparently wealthy, you know, that damnable white privelege, probably due to overtime, so that i wasn’t eligible for Pell grants. So, it was all loans, which I judiciously and thankfully applied for, knowing I would have to pay them back. AND, get this, I interrupted my education at one point to work and save for continuing my education. Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna, who I normally like and agree with, were on TV tonite saying it isn’t enuf, were questioned, “what about people who paid their loans and worked three jobs to do it?” Oh, we honor those people who (stoopidly) had a sense of responsibility and did that. Yeah, that and $2 gets you nothing and no votes from the people you say you want to reach out to. Reminds me of when I worked two jobs to save for a down payment on a house and a WHEDA mortgage. No advertised 5% downpayment for me, 10% and I had to cancel all but one credit cards and give them my budget down to toilet paper and toothpaste . Now the city/county/WHEDA give new housing to someone who gets off the bus. Meanwhile, the rest of us can be sure to pay our property taxes. This really makes me think we need a Dem (dumb) Senate to approved judges and a Repugnant House to stop Sleepy Uncle Joe brainstemstorms like continuing the breeder payments which apparently nobody used for taking care of their kids since the catterwalling on the local news is neverending.
So how do you really feel? After reading your comment, and I take the point you made, but in light of your family portion of the comment, does not the move by Biden work at the very thing central to your dad and his family…that being to improve the lives of working people? I understand that what is termed education debt is mostly on the shoulders of what many deride as elitists or well-off people–but does not the greater benefits they provide in science and research etc. then used by those who now are riled by the White House prove this a win-win?
The arrogant lawlessness of the (Dementia)JoKe continues apace:
When SanFranNan
was asked in July 2021 about Biden’s “power” to forgive student debt:
“He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power […] THAT HAS TO BE AN ACT OF CONGRESS.” (bolds/caps/italics mine)
It gets worse.
Ex-Obama Administration Economist Blasts DementiaJoKe’s RECKLESS STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS PROGRAM As ‘Pouring Roughly Half Trillion Dollars Of Gasoline On The Inflationary Fire’
And worse yet
The Gotch
This home from which I write is the site of a guardianship business office for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Over 40 cases are handled in a professional and medically sensitive manner. To comment, as you did, with a poke about a disease that impacts too many families and to attempt to tar a man for being older, but not exhibiting signs of the disease that you imply–all to make a political point—well, that is, I guess, the nature of our politics. Now, you may very well take exception to the issue of student loans, and that is fine. But do you really wish to act like the lowest parts of the Trump base about the age of the man serving in the White House?
You focus on that rather than on Pelosi’s Inconvenient Truth and a former Obama administration official staking out an unpopular position by telling it like it is?
Alrightythen.
And the lowest parts of a base?
The Gotch’s comment (admittedly a less-than-tasteful spur-of-the-moment departure from his usual demeanor..), is nothing compared to the way Trump, his wife, and his minor son were, and still are, treated by Lefty, for whom rumors of a crushing hypocrisy’s death are greatly exaggerated.
They bemoaned the treatment of the child Greta Thunberg, yet without a whit of self-awareness threaten Nick Sandmann, also a child, with all manner of physical/sexual/bodily harm, to the blood-lusting, mob-mentality cheers of the base.
Glass half full? Seems Sandmann got the last lucrative laugh on the one, am I right?
Anywho, there are many more examples whence that came. Like the now-unemployed Bandy X. Lee who evaluated Trump from afar, and rather unflatteringly at that, then miraculously finds a conscience and refuses to assess Biden in a similar situation.
Wouldn’t it have been much easier for her, and more reassuring to others, to just give him a clean bill of mental health, as you did. Gosh, why the change of heart?
“not exhibiting signs of the disease that you imply”?
Seriously? Reckon we can disagree without being disagreeable, but jeepers Deke, forget about Righty making those claims; there’s a gathering storm/keeping their distance contingent coming from those in his own party.
FWIW, The Gotch’s Dear late Parents (for whom he was one of several primary care-givers) both suffered from increasing degrees of dementia during their final years, yet he never got his bloomers-in-a-bunch when someone mentioned it in an unsympathetic manner.
The Gotch
I recall Senator Russ Feingold found an excuse not to be with President Obama in Milwaukee. Mary Burke did the same. I find the nation, and voters, respond better when we stand with the president of our party when he makes a visit. Keeping a distance has a price. Abrams should know that, too. I also recall the Bill Frist model of making a medical diagnosis from afar, too……
“I recall Senator Russ Feingold found an excuse not to be with President Obama in Milwaukee.”
The Gotch seems to…um…recall Obama (2012) and HRC (2016) being unable, or uninterested, to locate America’s Dairyland on the map; payback with the former and breathtaking hubris with the latter?
“I find the nation, and voters, respond better WHEN WE STAND WITH THE PRESIDENT OF OUR PARTY when he makes a visit.” (bolds/caps/italics mine)
“The President of OUR PARTY?”
The Gotch thought the CIC was supposed to represent EVERYONE, not just those of a certain ideological stripe; was that wrong?
To wit:
Biden–11/08/2020: “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States.”
Whatta bad…BAD Joke!
The Gotch
Russ did not stand with Obama in 2010 and yes, as your comment involves a sitting President and members of his party, I firmly believe that elected officials of said party greet the leader of their party. Period. There is another reason I have problems with Feingold’s decision not to stand with Obama in WI. It just was not a very classy thing to do. Regardless of politics, you should always stand with your friends. There comes a time when you say, whatever the effects, I will not turn my back on the leader of the free world. The President is coming to my state, and by God, I will be there with him. That may seem corny and outdated in this era of slash and burn politics, but it is a standard I still think has merit. It is a value I think many of my fellow citizens share, even in this jaded time in which we live.
As to your additional comment, that the president should represent everyone—that is separate from the point you raised in your previous comment about Dems “keeping their distance contingent” from Biden. That aspect of your comment is what I was addressing.
Now that you wish to broaden out your comment to include issues of a president representing everyone you need reminding that it was Republicans who were able to spook Russ into not standing with the President in WI on Labor Day. That aspect of politics I reject. You may know that Grover Cleveland went fishing in Maple Bluff in 1887. I suspect if we traveled back into the newspaper files there are stories of beaming residents pressing close to get close to the president. We may have partisan points of view about issues and policy but when the president visits there should stir within us a deep sense of respect for the office while knowing that we are witnessing a page of history. That may seem quaint and even corny, but I suggest what we need–perhaps more than anything else–a healthy dose of the old-fashioned way we once conducted our politics
Interesting back and forth between the Gotch and the Deke. Altho, the Feingold response seemed out of order. (or answered on the wrong post?) Anywho, Mr. Deke Process! Process! Process!, how is it with the stroke of a pen an executive can commit $400 billion to $1 trillion in spending, without Congress’ approval. Isn’t the process manual called the constee-too-shun. I already know from previous conversations, the end justifies the mean. Meanwhile Gotch, spare us the crocodile tears about how the Great Pumpkin Head and his family were treated by the nasty liberals. We were amazed at the stoopidity and politeness of the Repugnants when they overlooked calling Senator McCain a loser since he was a POW (interviewer and pollster Frank Luntz almost shit his pants – that alone should have been the end of Trump), casting aspersions at a Gold Star Family, making fun of a reporter’s disability, on and on ad nauseum. But boo hoo, the FBI “broke into” the house where Trump promised not to live (with advance notice), to get back state secrets he wasn’t supposed to steal, with a warrant signed by a federal judge. By the way Gotch, have you heard of a guy named Ron Johnson, I guess he’s running for a third term he promised not to, and is introducing hisself to Wis. with millions in touchy feely ads. Most politicians after 11 1/2 years in office don’t need to introduce theyselves. But he never shows up in the state, his staff come to the town halls, or they’re by phone. Don’t want to mingle among the rabble. They know the issues better than he does and don’t accept B.S.
“We were amazed at the stoopidity and politeness of the Proglibocrats when they overlooked the Former Serial Sexual Predator In Chief Rape Culture and his (heh!) Über Feminista Cankles wife allowing herself to be continuously humiliated on a galactic scale, setting up an illegal private server and mishandling top secret documents, and abetting the Clintonista Slush Fund to pillage Haiti.”
fify
The Gotch
BENGAHZI!!! I imagine if the Repugs take the House they’ll have about 45 more hearings on that and the emails and find nothing, again. You’re right on Bill being a pig Gotch, but I’ll see your mention and raise you 4500 by the great pussy-grabber, serial divorcer and great importer of foreign wives and their families. Anchor babies anyone?. I would love to see the Great Orange Punkinhead giving a deposition to the Jan 6th Committee for 11 hours like Hillary did. They’d happily provide him the rope. LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! He hisself signed a tough new law on mishandling secret docs. Use that law Milquetoast Merrick!