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NPR:
The governors, all Republicans, argue that the lowest income Americans will be paying the debts of doctors, lawyers and professors "with the most debt, such as $50,000 or more..."
Kinda surprised they’re making this a political hill to die on. You can argue that it’s not fair to students without debt, or that it may have counter-productive effects on tuition levels (which they do argue, secondarily), but the quote above is transparently false, and easily shown to be so, as the NPR story notes:
Though, Biden's plan caps relief at $20,000 for those who received Pell grants – awarded to low-income students – and $10,000 for students who did not get Pell grants in college. Additionally, individuals who make more than $125,000 are not eligible for the one-time relief.
Maybe lower-income doctors and lawyers?
Anyway, they didn’t peep when Trump sent a trillion dollars of tax cuts to corporations, to be “paid by the lowest income Americans”. And they blocked him from getting student debt relief through Congress. Also, Biden campaigned on it, so it’s not a surprise (- he ”keeps his promises”, unlike Trump).
Well, honestly, the GOP is just kind of thrashing around right now with the Trump and Roe debacles; maybe this piece of spaghetti will stick to the wall.
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"pay off the student loan debt of an elite few"
That "elite few" includes every person who got a bachelor's degree, plus many who took an Associates, or did not finish. Some 32% of the population over 25 has a bachelor's degree.
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I'm kind of annoyed that the headline is getting the traction that it is.
Might as well read "Republicans don't want Dems to do a thing". Yeah, its been their governing philosophy for the past decade.
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It's important that this move is used PUNISH the Republicans. Democrats need to sing this from the rooftop.
"They gave $$Billions to the wealthy. $$Millions to themselves. And want to deny help to those of you who are NOT wealthy ? "
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A more effective policy going forward would be for some of the monthly payments to apply towards the principal, right from the start. Looking at my payment schedule some years ago, I saw that I would not be paying a single cent towards principal until several years into payments. I’ve been paying for 20 years, and still owe the original amount I borrowed.
My mortgage, on the other hand, with similar amount and interest, already is half paid off after 8 years of considerably lower monthly payments than the student loan. The $90,000 of capitalized interest on the student loan has something to do with that.
We have been ripped off. Loan forgiveness is not taking away money from the poor to pay the rich. It’s returning some of the money to those who have been swindled.
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He's doing this under the authority of COVID emergency. Anything that requires more elaborate administration over time would need to be legislated. It's all now, or never.
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I’ve been paying for 20 years, and still owe the original amount I borrowed.
This is a crime, pure and simple. The only thing missing is Vinnie paying you a visit.
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I think it's interesting that they have decided to focus on pushing a lie rather than taking the issue on in terms of disagreeing with the policy on conservative philosophical grounds. Has lying just become a reflex way of dealing with everything or do they think that they have to taint the loan forgiveness with a lie because otherwise more of public will support the loan forgiveness than not?
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wurm wrote:
I’ve been paying for 20 years, and still owe the original amount I borrowed.
This is a crime, pure and simple. The only thing missing is Vinnie paying you a visit.
I always thought that student loans should go straight through the Treasury Dept to the person taking the student loan. The interest should have been whatever rate the Treasury Dept had to pay to sell bonds at the time of the loan plus a low administrative cost.
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wurm wrote:
I’ve been paying for 20 years, and still owe the original amount I borrowed.
This is a crime, pure and simple. The only thing missing is Vinnie paying you a visit.
There are reasons Sallie Mae and Navient that they spun off about a decade ago have been sued multiple times. The latest against Navient resulted in a nearly $2 billion settlement.
Quite the usual result of an organization taken out from under close government oversight. Sallie Mae started as a government sponsored entity to service student loans. Durig the '90s push to deregulate everything they went private and started making non-federal student loans alongside the loans they were servicing. Since then they have lost the contract to service federal loans. Navient is also out of servicing these loans, or in the process of transferring them.
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