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student debt cancellation
Hey Democrats, Tell Biden to Break Something for Democracy!
For anyone who's invested in the Democratic Party, there is absolutely zero excuse at this point not to be actively demanding governance from the Biden administration that creates roadblocks to Trumpism.
Nov 13, 2024
We are awash in post-electoral grand explanatory arguments and pre-Trump injunctions to organize. This is neither. I want to talk now about breaking things.
As former president of a wall-to-wall union local and author of a book on how regular people can respond to the polycrisis, I'm committed to local organizing and delighted to see so many calls for it (though as a leftist I'd gently remind everyone that we equally need translocal solidarities to reorient the worst of what's to come). But, I'm also frustrated by these calls. They gloss over a crucial site of immediate political action within the actually existing system of U.S. governance.
For anyone who's invested in the Democratic Party, there is absolutely zero excuse at this point not to be very, very, very actively demanding governance from the Biden administration that creates roadblocks to Trumpism.
There's a lot of talk about what a Trump administration will mean and how to resist the worst of that locally and at a grassroots level. And that's great. But RIGHT NOW, literally at this exact moment and for a couple more months, your guy is still in office.
Wither the Last 60 Days of Biden's Presidency?
One of the dominant rhetorical tropes of American presidential politics is that of The First 100 Days. (This goes back especially to FDR, and refers to massive collections of reorienting legislation and executive orders.) And one of the major political developments of the last few decades (or century-and-a-half) in the U.S. is the rise of an "executive presidency" or "unitary executive," the refashioning of the executive branch of American government as a fundamentally presidentially controlled domain of quasi-legislative action that sidesteps the legislative branch. That includes governance by executive order and direct presidential control of the various agencies that implement and administer the legal order.
This is widely regarded as a threat to constitutionalism and democracy, and rightly so. It's also, however, how things have shaken out for us here in the United States. It's the system that we have, and the collection of rhetorical tropes and real presidential powers that orient our collective conversation now about how an incoming President Donald Trump will be enabled to behave in authoritarian ways.
It makes sense that everybody's worried about that.
If you are a person who wants to believe in this system that we have, you can today right now take the pragmatic approach of demanding something immediate from your political party that you believe is invested in democracy and that is, again, actually in control of the executive branch.
But wouldn't a better use of energy for rank-and-file Democrats, for those who believe ( against the evidence) that their preferred political party cares about small-d democracy, be to demand from U.S. President Joe Biden a "Last 60 Days" devoted to antifascist executive action?
Where, right now, are the calls for an unprecedented barrage of executive orders that would interfere with all that you take (and I agree) to be worst in Trumpism?
If you believe that one political party in the existing U.S. system of governance exists to defend and promote small-d democracy and human rights and equality and all the rest, why are you not right now demanding that this party use the extremely well-understood, very practically real power that it presently has to do things that will dramatically interfere with a near-future shift toward authoritarianism???
The Executive Order of Breaking Things
Political observers understand well that everything an executive order productively makes can be undone by another executive order.
But, as we've seen lots of in the past (the first Trump presidency's Muslim ban comes to mind), executive orders can be used very effectively to break things.
Usually, the fact that it's easier to tear things down than build them is, correctly enough, invoked as a kind of caution against tearing things down. We are right to worry that when you break things (like the EPA or freedom of movement or DACA or any institutionally secured set of goods), it's very hard to put them together again, maybe even impossible.
Left to their own devices, it will be big-D Democrat continuism that ushers in fascism, not your asshole neighbor or racist uncle or whomever else we might plausibly pin it on.
But what about breaking things that should be broken? Aren't there some features of our institutions that need to be broken?
You can create roadblocks to fascism by erecting concrete barriers, but you can also create them by dynamiting roads that tend naturally to lead there.
The fact that we're not hearing all about an enormous flurry of road-dynamiting from the actually still governing Biden administration, and about tremendous pressure for still more road-dynamiting from liberals and progressives, registers a staggering political failure. If you are a person who wants to believe in this system that we have, you can today right now take the pragmatic approach of demanding something immediate from your political party that you believe is invested in democracy and that is, again, actually in control of the executive branch.
Tell Biden to break something.
What Can Biden Break?
For just three instances, from a great many that might be imagined, a Biden administration that was trying to render fascism more difficult in the future instead of preparing for a neat and tidy transition to it might
- Cut off all arms shipments to Israel immediately and advance new genocide resolutions in the U.N.;
- End all military-to-police equipment programs immediately and destroy stockpiles of matériel destined for the police; and
- Forgive all public student loans immediately and order destruction of the records.
Each of these is a mixed bag, far from simply and uncomplicatedly "good." But all three (and any number of actions like them) would interfere with fascizing in the near future.
The first because it's a recommitment to at least the discourse of "human rights" as globally real and necessary--which makes it harder for a Trump administration to smoothly continue and deepen the Biden administration's "end of the human rights era."
The second because it interferes with the militarization of police–a largely lawless, loosely affiliated assortment of locally decisionist violence-perpetrators that exists at any given moment *exclusively* to uphold whatever is designated "order"; a person can see how giving such coordinated bodies a bunch of select-fire machine guns and armored vehicles and grenade launchers would be more useful for fascism than for democracy, yes?
The third because it destroys one basis (from many) of social control, a vast body of internetworked debt holdings, in a way that simultaneously puts money back into regular people's pockets and would essentially pre-break the financial system (i.e., break it in a manner that people would see the consequences of after Trump takes office, but the benefits of while Biden is still in office).
One can think of any number of other such road-dynamiting moves. (Heck, perhaps you can even use executive orders to break the unitary executive itself–certainly, a radically antifascist set of actions from a lame-duck Biden administration would give even many Republicans anxiety about Trump's likely mobilization of the executive presidency.)
I'm just outlining three possibilities here. All would be poison if you did them while you were also seeking votes. All are mixed bags in some very real ways. All are things the executive president can really do tomorrow (though subject to lawsuits and a subsequent crisis in the courts–knowing and planning for that would be part of the strategy).
And all are real ways of interfering with wholly predictable dimensions of fascizing under a Trump administration.
They Definitely Won't Do It if You Don't Demand It
That the Biden administration and Democrats won't do any of these things on their own is an indication of their only deep political commitment: continuation of the existing order for as long as possible. Left to their own devices, it will be big-D Democrat continuism that ushers in fascism, not your asshole neighbor or racist uncle or whomever else we might plausibly pin it on.
Biden, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and the rest of Democratic Party leadership have again and again promised a "peaceful transition of power." Peaceful, fine, sure, of course. But why so smooth a transition? If fascism is really on the menu, as we've been told over and over and as seems entirely likely, why not a rocky, uncomfortable transition that actually impedes fascizing? Why not dynamite a few roads that lead particularly smoothly toward authoritarian rule, human rights abuses, and violence against citizens and others around the world?
Liberals and progressives should demand now that Democrats change everything–not messaging strategies for the next election in 2026 if that even happens, but everything necessary to prevent a smooth and functional authoritarian transition in Trump's First 100 Days.
Because the deepest commitment of our political establishment is to continuity, not democracy. They are addicted to continuity in an age of catastrophe.
I tried to get at how hoping Democrats will arrive at better trajectories for navigating polycrisis on their own steam produces worst-case outcomes in Panic Now? Tools for Humanizing: "As everyone who's ever confronted an addiction knows, getting better doesn't start with insisting there's some relatively easy way out as long as everyone maintains hope. Getting better starts with acknowledging how unbearably bad things have gotten, and concomitantly that you actually don't know what to do next. And then you have to change everything."
American liberals have thus far raised no hue and cry demanding the Biden administration dynamite some fascizing roads, change everything. They have instead, since the election a week ago, asked for nothing of substance from the still-governing presidential administration in order to prevent or impede fascism.
Liberals and progressives should demand now that Democrats change everything–not messaging strategies for the next election in 2026 if that even happens, but everything necessary to prevent a smooth and functional authoritarian transition in Trump's First 100 Days.
What would it look like to break enough?
The current trajectory of the Democratic Party is so wholeheartedly committed to system maintenance that it guarantees the worst sorts of coming devastation. This, more than post-electoral nuts-and-bolts voting breakdowns or even pre-Trump prepping, should give everyone in the country great pause.
So, Go Demand It!
In the pause–if you canvassed to get out the vote, or wrote postcards and sent texts, or donated to Democrats, they are your party. They are currently in governance. The sorts of governance that become possible next, after the Biden administration's Last 60 Days conclude in January, will depend greatly on how Democrats choose to use the executive branch right now. They can smooth the path for an authoritarian transition–or not.
Democrats aren't my party. I vote for them as a competent hostage, not a booster or an adherent. Dear liberal and progressive friends, your party is currently in control of the executive branch of the United States of America.
Reach out and tell them to break something!
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FAA Bill Includes 'Test Flight' for Banning Student Loan Forgiveness
"If Congress will stop debt relief for pilots now, they'll do it to nurses tomorrow, teachers the next day, and social workers the day after," campaigners said.
Apr 04, 2024
Campaigners have issued a "red alert" over language included in the 2024 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act that could pave the way toward banning student loan cancellation.
The current draft of the routine bill bars executive branch officials from cancelling or forgiving student loans taken out to pursue flight training or education at the undergraduate level, the Debt Collective warned on Wednesday.
"They're trying to make relief illegal," the group posted on social media.
"Student debtors and their allies need to stick together and stick up for each other."
Buried 1,000 pages in, the language flagged by the Debt Collective comes under the heading, "Prohibition on mass cancellation of eligible undergraduate flight education and training programs loans."
"The secretary, the secretary of the treasury, or the attorney general may not take any action to cancel or forgive the outstanding balances, or portion of balances, on any federal direct unsubsidized Stafford loan, or otherwise modify the terms or conditions of a federal direct unsubsidized Stafford loan, made to an eligible student, except as authorized by an act of Congress," the text reads.
The Debt Collective named Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) as particularly responsible for the language.
"Forty-five million student debtors need to see this and get very, very loud," the group said.
While the language only prohibits the executive cancellation of a certain subset of loans, experts and advocates warned lawmakers would not stop there.
"Make no mistake, this is a test flight," author and Debt Collective co-founder Astra Taylor wrote on social media. "If they can make student debt cancellation illegal for some people, they will do it for others. Student debtors and their allies need to stick together and stick up for each other."
Taylor urged anyone concerned about the language to contact the legislators flagged by the Debt Collective.
The Debt Collective called the language a "test run."
"If Congress will stop debt relief for pilots now, they'll do it to nurses tomorrow, teachers the next day, and social workers the day after," the group said.
Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, meanwhile, called out the lawmakers for hypocrisy.
"The same members of Congress who had PPP loans forgiven, want to make it illegal to cancel student debt," Turner wrote on social media, referring to the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program.
The question of who has the authority to cancel student loan debt has been a major stumbling block for the Biden administration's efforts to tackle the issue. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan in June 2023, arguing in part that the administration did not have the authority to forgive as much debt as it had without authorization from Congress.
Despite the ruling, the administration has found ways to forgive $143.6 billion for almost 4 million borrowers, though that's only a fraction of more than $1.7 trillion Americans owe in student loans.
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US Cities and Counties Demand Promised Student Debt Relief From Biden
The letter highlights "the crushing weight of the student debt crisis on borrowers and their communities, and the extended economic limbo millions of borrowers have been forced to endure."
Sep 21, 2023
Leaders of 20 U.S. cities and counties, representing more than 1.2 million borrowers with nearly $50 billion in student debt, wrote to President Joe Biden on Thursday demanding swift action on long-promised and long-delayed relief.
Biden's first plan to cancel up to $20,000 per borrower was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June. The administration is now working on a new relief plan involving the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 but has chosen to initiate a drawn-out rulemaking process that campaigners say is unnecessary.
While welcoming the HEA effort, the letter stresses the urgent need among borrowers whose loan payments are set to resume October 1 after being paused for over three years in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Given the crushing weight of the student debt crisis on borrowers and their communities, and the extended economic limbo millions of borrowers have been forced to endure as partisan lawsuits blocked transformative debt relief in the courts, we urge you to continue the necessary work to deliver on your promise of up to $20,000 in student debt relief and enact your new debt relief plan as swiftly as possible," local leaders from more than a dozen states wrote to the president.
"The Supreme Court's decision to ignore the clear letter of the law and strike down your life-changing debt relief plan is further evidence of its willingness to put politics and special interests before the American people," they argued.
The letter is signed by mayors, city attorneys, and other officials from Little Rock, Arkansas; Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, California; Evanston, Illinois; Gary, Indiana; Mount Rainier, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Washtenaw County, Michigan; Kansas City, Missouri; Carrboro and Hillsborough, North Carolina; Hoboken and Newark, New Jersey; Cleveland, Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Travis County, Texas; and Madison, Wisconsin.
As they detailed:
America's cities are on the frontlines of the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis. This crisis has spiraled out of control, reinforcing deeply embedded inequities in our country and creating financial despair in our communities—and the pandemic has exacerbated these challenges. Relief is urgently needed to help alleviate the financial burden on residents, helping families cover rising costs and invest in our local economies and their own future. As officials in your administration have consistently stated, resuming loan payments this fall without first providing broad-based student debt relief would result in a catastrophic wave of borrower distress, dealing a punishing blow to millions of families in our communities while destabilizing our local economies and increasing demand for public benefits and services.
As the letter notes, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in June that around 2.5 million student loan borrowers already have a delinquency on another loan. The federal agency also found that about 1-in-5 student loan borrowers "have risk factors that suggest they could struggle when scheduled payments resume."
Recent polling suggests that number could be even higher. As Common Dreams reported last month, 49% of borrowers surveyed by Intelligent.com said they aren't sure they can afford the looming loan bills, and 62% said they are likely to boycott repayments.
"Your administration is now only days away from restarting a fundamentally broken and underfunded student loan servicing system, throwing 45 million Americans into chaos," the new to Biden letter warns. "While we appreciate your administration's announcement to shield borrowers from the most severe economic consequences of default, millions of borrowers will be forced to navigate the complex system for the first time in more than three and a half years."
Potentially compounding the stress for borrowers, the resumption of payments could coincide with a looming government shutdown—and as Insider reported Monday, the U.S. Department of Education "does not yet have a contingency plan for managing Federal Student Aid's operations without funding in two weeks."
Whether or not the government will be shut down when payments resume, borrowers are bracing for the impacts of another monthly bill, as are restaurants, retailers, and overcrowded animal shelters—and economists are warning of the consequences for the U.S. economy.
Pausing payments "helped ensure that people did not face financial ruin as a part of a pandemic they did not cause, and borrowers found themselves on more solid financial footing, for many, for the first time in years," Angela Hanks, chief of programs at Demos and a former Biden administration official, told Newsweek on Thursday.
"This meant that people were able to pay other bills on time, including basics like rent and groceries," Hanks said. "For the millions of borrowers who will be forced into repayment in just a few weeks, this transition will undermine whatever stability they've been able to create for their families over the last few years."
"The end of the student loan forbearance risks disrupting an otherwise growing economy," she added. "Wages are outpacing inflation, and unemployment is down, but saddling families with another expensive bill risks undermining our collective economic progress."
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New Tool Creates Personalized Legal Memo Asking Education Department to Cancel Student Debt
"President Biden says he is going to use every tool he can to cancel student debt, but there is still much more he can do," said a co-founder of the Debt Collective. "With this new tool, we are calling his bluff."
Aug 28, 2023
"Filling out this form creates an individual demand letter, tailored to your own student debt story, calling on the Department of Education to use its powers to cancel not just your debt, but everyone's."
That's how the Debt Collective describes a tool it launched Monday to increase pressure on the Biden administration to deliver on long-promised relief from federal student loan repayments.
As the group's website explains, for those who want to use the tool:
- You answer some basic questions about your student debt.
- Based on your answers, we've created legal language to assert why your loans are BS and should be canceled. Those answers will generate a demand letter.
- When you've completed all the questions, the form will get sent automatically to key officials with the power to act at the Department of Education.
"Using this new tool can in no way harm you," said Debt Collective spokesperson Braxton Brewington. "The reality is, the Education Department has the authority to eliminate a person's federal student debts if they want to. We know because they've done it before. Whether they choose to cancel people's debts or not is completely up to their political rationale."
An FAQ section for the tool explains that filling out the form does not ensure debt cancellation, and "the Department of Education is not required to respond to these letters. However, our goal is to submit so many of them, they will HAVE to make a statement."
President Joe Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—announced his initial plan to use a 2003 law to cancel up to $20,000 per borrower last August, but the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority struck down the program in June.
Now, with loan payments that have been paused throughout the Covid-19 pandemic set to resume in October, borrowers and some Democrats in Congress have renewed demands for urgent relief action by the Biden administration.
"President Biden says he is going to use every tool he can to cancel student debt, but there is still much more he can do," noted Debt Collective co-founder Thomas Gokey. "With this new tool, we are calling his bluff and demanding he cancel the debt for everyone today."
After the Supreme Court ruling, the Biden administration initiated a rulemaking process involving the Higher Education Act of 1965, but borrowers and campaigners are concerned about how long it is taking and warn that right-wing opponents of debt cancellation will use the time to come up with ways to keep blocking relief.
Hoping for swift and sweeping presidential action, the Debt Collective previously published a draft executive order that says in part, "The secretary of education shall immediately use the full extent of his power under the Higher Education Act and any other applicable law to cancel all obligations to repay federal student loans."
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175+ Groups Urge Biden to Immediately Enact New Student Debt Cancellation Plan
"Restarting the fundamentally broken student loan system without first delivering on the relief promised to borrowers remains a grave mistake, and will only exacerbate already dire economic situations for millions."
Jul 19, 2023
As millions of Americans prepare to start making student loan payments again in October, nearly 180 organizations on Wednesday pressured U.S. President Joe Biden to immediately enact a new plan to deliver on long-promised relief for federal borrowers.
After the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority ruled last month that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act "does not authorize" the president's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for millions of borrowers, the administration initiated what is expected to be a drawn-out process that instead relies on the Higher Education Act.
"Due to the crushing nature of the student debt crisis and the fact that millions of workers and families have already had to wait in economic limbo for nearly a year as partisan lawsuits blocked transformative relief in court, we urge you to continue the necessary work to deliver on your promise of up to $20,000 in student debt relief and enact your new debt relief plan as swiftly as possible," 179 groups, led by Student Borrower Protection Center, wrote to Biden on Wednesday.
"The Supreme Court's decision to ignore the clear letter of the law and strike down your life-changing debt relief plan is further evidence of its willingness to put politics and special interests before the American people," the groups argued. "The recently signed Fiscal Responsibility Act which suspends the debt ceiling until 2025 while codifying the end of the student loan payment pause—a crucial economic lifeline for millions—has made it all the more urgent to act now to cancel student debt before payments resume."
The coalition warned that "while the administration has announced notable steps to mitigate the harshest economic consequences for borrowers—including shielding borrowers from negative credit reporting, delinquencies, and defaults should they fall behind—restarting the fundamentally broken student loan system without first delivering on the relief promised to borrowers remains a grave mistake, and will only exacerbate already dire economic situations for millions of American households."
The organizations stressed both the popularity and necessity of student debt relief, pointing to polling and the fact that after Biden unveiled his long-awaited initial plan last year, "26 million borrowers applied for debt relief and 16 million were approved during the short window of time that the application was open to the public."
The new letter comes after Biden's U.S. Department of Education announced last week that it will soon begin wiping out the federal student loan debt of about 804,000 borrowers after implementing fixes to income-driven repayment plans—which also provoked calls for more sweeping relief.
Student loan payments for federal borrowers were initially halted under former President Donald Trump, in response to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Trump and Biden administrations repeatedly extended the pause over the past few years. Following the recent court ruling, interest is set to resume on September 1 and payments will be due starting in October.
Policies on student debt are widely expected to influence next year's presidential and congressional elections. Biden—who continues to refuse to support expanding the Supreme Court—is seeking reelection, and Trump is leading in the polls for the GOP's 2024 nomination, despite his legal trouble and arguments that his incitement of the January 6, 2021 insurrection disqualifies him from holding public office again.
Meanwhile, Protect Borrowers Action has launched a campaign targeting 13 U.S. House Republicans in battleground districts who signed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down the president's first student debt relief plan and backed an unsuccessful congressional resolution that would have killed the policy.
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Campaign Aims to Mobilize 'Mad as Hell' Student Loan Borrowers to Unseat Key Republicans
"Student loan borrowers have political power. It's time we use it."
Jul 06, 2023
A new campaign launched Thursday aims to channel widespread anger over the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling against student debt cancellation into an effort to unseat House Republicans who have opposed and attempted to sabotage debt relief every step of the way.
Launched by the nonprofit Protect Borrowers Action, the campaign will focus its attention on more than a dozen Republican-held seats in battleground districts, targeting Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and 10 others ahead of the 2024 elections.
Each of the House Republicans that Protect Borrowers Action is looking to unseat signed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down President Joe Biden's debt relief plan and supported a failed effort to repeal the president's program using the Congressional Review Act.
"Working people burdened with student debt are mad as hell over the hypocrisy of treating conservative billionaires one way and those striving for the middle class another," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers—a backer of the new campaign—said in a statement.
"Right-wing politicians need to hear loud and clear that when they put the interests of conservative billionaires above the financial welfare of their own constituents, they will be held accountable," said Weingarten. "Protect Borrowers Action will educate and empower voters with the knowledge necessary to do just that. Gone are the days where politicians get a pass for being complicit in the student debt crisis plaguing our communities."
The $2 million campaign kicked off with a digital ad pledging to make sure the 13 Republican lawmakers "hear from their constituents who they kept drowning in debt."
The campaign's launch comes less than a week after the Supreme Court's conservative justices sided with Republican attorneys general and ruled that Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt per eligible borrower was unconstitutional.
The decision was met with immediate backlash from progressive lawmakers and advocates, who wasted no time urging Biden to cancel student debt immediately using his authority under the Higher Education Act of 1965.
The Biden administration instead initiated what's likely to be a time-consuming "rulemaking process aimed at opening an alternative path to debt relief"—an approach that debt relief advocates decried as unnecessary foot-dragging that will diminish the prospects of delivering relief to more than 40 million borrowers as they face the resumption of loan payments in less than three months.
Survey data released Wednesday by Data for Progress shows that 54% of likely U.S. voters support Biden using the Higher Education Act to cancel student debt following the Supreme Court's decision last week.
But the sustained popularity of student debt cancellation has not stopped Republican lawmakers from vocally opposing relief and cheering the Supreme Court for blocking Biden's original plan.
Boebert, one of the Republicans targeted by Protect Borrowers Action, took to Twitter after the ruling to applaud the high court, calling Biden's debt relief program a "$400 billion student loan bailout."
The Biden White House noted in response that had the Supreme Court upheld the administration's plan, 87,500 of Boebert's constituents would have been eligible for relief.
It's those constituents in Colorado, and in key congressional districts across the country, that Protect Borrowers Action is looking to mobilize in the coming months.
"After nearly a year defending student debt relief, it feels good to play offense," Mike Pierce, executive director of Protect Borrowers Action, tweeted Thursday. "Student loan borrowers have political power. It's time we use it."
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Student Debt Is Evil
Forgiving student debt is righting a moral wrong inflicted on millions of Americans by Ronald Reagan and his morbidly rich Republican buddies.
Jul 04, 2023
Six Republicans on the Supreme Court just killed President Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness program.
Republicans, predictably, are giddy, celebrating another Supreme Court victory in which, on behalf of their neofascist billionaire owners, they’re again “owning the libs.”
They’re ecstatic that poor and working class people—particularly Black women who, as ABC News noted, “hold nearly two-thirds of the nearly $2 trillion outstanding student debt in the U.S.”—will find it ever harder to climb into the middle class, which increasingly requires a college degree.
When you search on the phrase “student debt forgiveness” one of the top hits that comes up is a Fox “News” article by a woman who paid off her loans in full.
“There are millions of Americans like me,” the author writes, “for whom debt forgiveness is an infuriating slap in the face after years of hard work and sacrifice. Those used to be qualities we encouraged as an American culture, and if Biden gets his way, we’ll be sending a very different message to the next generation.”
This is, to be charitable, bullsh*t.
Forgiving student debt is not a slap at anybody; it’s righting a moral wrong inflicted on millions of Americans by Ronald Reagan and his morbidly rich Republican buddies.
Student debt is evil.
It’s a crime against our nation, hobbling opportunity and weakening our intellectual infrastructure. It maintains and in many cases rigidifies the racial and class caste systems today’s Americans inherited from our eras of slavery and indenture.
Every nation’s single biggest long-term asset is a well-educated populace, and student debt diminishes that. Every other advanced democracy on the planet understands this.
Combine this decision with the six Republicans on the Court ending affirmative action and legalizing discrimination this term and it’s clear this is exactly what the rightwing billionaires who put them on the Court and support their lavish vacations and lifestyles want.
Many, if not most, of the people in today’s billionaire class have supported—and fought for—such a caste system since the founding of America, and in every other country around the world, since time immemorial. It’s literally the history of Western civilization from ancient Greece and Rome, the stories of kings and conquistadors, and the “Robber Barons” of America’s gilded age.
They really don’t care about improving the lives of everyday Americans; their philosophy is, “I got mine; screw you.” Educated themselves, they’ve always worked to “pull up the ladder” behind them and thus maintain their elite status.
As history shows, this harms countries in real and measurable ways.
Every nation’s single biggest long-term asset is a well-educated populace, and student debt diminishes that.
Every other advanced democracy on the planet understands this.
That’s why student debt at the scale we have in America literally does not exist anywhere else in the rest of the developed world.
American students, in fact, are going to college for free right now in Germany, Iceland, France, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic, because pretty much anybody can go to college for free in those countries and dozens of others.
“Student debt?” The rest of the developed world doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
Forty years on from the Reagan Revolution, student debt has crippled three generations of young Americans: Over 44 million people carry the burden, totaling a $2+ trillion drag on our economy that benefits nobody except the banks earning interest on the debt and the politicians they pay off.
Student debt also largely didn’t exist in modern America before the Reagan Revolution. It was created by Republicans here in the 1980s—intentionally—and if we can overcome Republican opposition we can intentionally end it here and join the rest of the world in once again benefiting from an educated populace.
Forty years on from the Reagan Revolution, student debt has crippled three generations of young Americans: Over 44 million people carry the burden, totaling a $2+ trillion drag on our economy that benefits nobody except the banks earning interest on the debt and the politicians they pay off.
But that doesn’t begin to describe the damage student debt has done to America since Reagan, in his first year as governor of California, ended free tuition at the University of California and cut state aid to that college system by 20% across-the-board.
After having destroyed low income Californians’ ability to get a college education in the 1970s, Reagan then took his anti-education program national as president in 1981.
When asked why he’d taken a meat-axe to higher education and was pricing college out of the reach of most Americans, he said, much like Ron DeSantis might today, that college students were “too liberal” and America “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity.”
It was the 1980s version of today’s “war on woke.”
On May 1, 1970, Governor Reagan announced that students protesting the Vietnam War across America were “brats,” “freaks,” and “cowardly fascists,” adding, as The New York Times noted at the time:
“If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with. No more appeasement!”
Four days later four were dead at Kent State, having been murdered by national guard riflemen using live ammunition against anti-war protesters.
Before Reagan became president, states paid 65% of the costs of colleges, and federal aid covered another 15 or so %, leaving students to cover the remaining 20% with their tuition payments.
It’s why when I briefly attended college in the late 1960s—before Reagan—I could pay my tuition working a weekend job as a DJ at a local radio station and washing dishes at Bob’s Big Boy restaurant on Trowbridge Road in East Lansing.
That’s how it works—at a minimum—in most developed nations, although in many northern European countries college is not only free, but the government pays students a stipend to cover books and rent.
Here in America, though, the numbers are pretty much reversed from pre-1980 as a result of Reaganommics, with students now covering about 80% of the costs. Thus the need for student loans here in the USA.
As soon as he became president, Reagan went after federal aid to students with a fanatic fervor. Devin Fergus documented for The Washington Post how, as a result, student debt first became a thing across the United States during the early ‘80s:
“No federal program suffered deeper cuts than student aid. Spending on higher education was slashed by some 25% between 1980 and 1985... Students eligible for grant assistance freshmen year had to take out student loans to cover their second year.”
It became a mantra for conservatives, particularly in Reagan’s cabinet. Let the kids pay for their own damn “liberal” educations.
Reagan’s college educated director of the Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman, told a reporter in 1981:
“I don’t accept the notion that the federal government has an obligation to fund generous grants to anybody who wants to go to college. It seems to me that if people want to go to college bad enough then there is opportunity and responsibility on their part to finance their way through the best way they can… I would suggest that we could probably cut it a lot more.”
After all, cutting taxes for the morbidly rich was Reagan’s first and main priority, a position the GOP holds to this day. Cutting education could “reduce the cost of government” and thus justify more tax cuts.
Reagan’s first Education Secretary, Terrel Bell, wrote in his memoir:
“Stockman and all the true believers identified all the drag and drain on the economy with the ‘tax-eaters’: people on welfare, those drawing unemployment insurance, students on loans and grants, the elderly bleeding the public purse with Medicare, the poor exploiting Medicaid.”
Reagan’s next Education Secretary, William Bennett, was even more blunt about how America should deal with the “problem” of uneducated people who can’t afford college, particularly if they were African American:
“I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime,” Bennett famously said, “you could—if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”
These doctrines became an article of faith across the GOP and remain so to this day, as we saw last week with the Republicans on the Supreme Court ending affirmative action.
Reagan’s OMB Director David Stockman told Congress that students were “tax eaters… [and] a drain and drag on the American economy.” Student aid, he said, “isn’t a proper obligation of the taxpayer.”
This was where, when, and how today’s student debt crisis was kicked off in 1981.
Before Reagan, though, America had a different perspective.
Both my father and my wife Louise’s father served in the military during World War II and both went to college on the GI Bill. My dad dropped out after two years and went to work in a steel plant because mom got pregnant with me; Louise’s dad, who’d grown up dirt poor, went all the way for his law degree and ended up as Assistant Attorney General for the State of Michigan.
They were two among almost 8 million young men and women who not only got free tuition from the 1944 GI Bill but also received a stipend to pay for room, board, and books. And the result—the return on our government’s investment in those 8 million educations—was substantial.
The best book on that time and subject is Edward Humes’ Over Here: How the GI Bill Transformed the American Dream, summarized by Mary Paulsell for the Columbia Daily Tribune:
“[That] groundbreaking legislation gave our nation 14 Nobel Prize winners, three Supreme Court justices, three presidents, 12 senators, 24 Pulitzer Prize winners, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 450,000 engineers, 240,000 accountants, 17,000 journalists, 22,000 dentists and millions of lawyers, nurses, artists, actors, writers, pilots, and entrepreneurs.”
Free education literally built America’s middle class.
When people have an education, they not only raise the competence and vitality of a nation; they also earn more money, which stimulates the economy. Because they earn more, they pay more in taxes, which helps pay back the government for the cost of that education.
In 1952 dollars, the GI Bill’s educational benefit cost the nation $7 billion. The increased economic output over the next 40 years that could be traced directly to that educational cost was $35.6 billion, and the extra taxes received from those higher-wage-earners was $12.8 billion.
In other words, the U.S. government invested $7 billion and got a $48.4 billion return on that investment, about a $7 return for every $1 invested.
In addition, that educated workforce made it possible for America to lead the world in innovation, R&D, and new business development for three generations.
We invented the transistor, the integrated circuit, the internet, new generations of miracle drugs, sent men to the moon. and reshaped science.
Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln knew this simple concept that seems so hard for Reagan and generations of Republicans since to understand: when you invest in young people, you’re investing in your nation.
Jefferson founded the University of Virginia as a 100% tuition-free school; it was one of his three proudest achievements, ranking higher on the epitaph he wrote for his own tombstone than his having been both president and vice president.
Lincoln was equally proud of the free and low-tuition colleges he started. As the state of North Dakota notes:
“Lincoln signed the Morrill Act on July 2, 1862, giving each state a minimum of 90,000 acres of land to sell, to establish colleges of engineering, agriculture, and military science… Proceeds from the sale of these lands were to be invested in a perpetual endowment fund which would provide support for colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts in each of the states.”
Fully 76 free or very-low-tuition state colleges were started because of Lincoln’s effort and since have educated millions of Americans including my mom, who graduated from land-grant Michigan State University in the 1940s, having easily paid her minimal tuition working as a summer lifeguard in her home town of Charlevoix, Michigan.
Every other developed country in the world knows this, too: Student debt is rare or even nonexistent in most western democracies. Not only is college free or close to free around much of the developed world; many countries even offer a stipend for monthly expenses like our GI Bill did back in the day.
As mentioned earlier, thousands of American students are currently studying in Germany at the moment for free. Hundreds of thousands of American students are also getting free college educations right now in Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic, among others.
Republican policies of starving education and cranking up student debt have made U.S. banks a lot of money, but they’ve cut America’s scientific leadership in the world and, since the institution of trickle-down Reaganomics, stopped three generations of young people from starting businesses, having families, and buying homes.
And now the Supreme Court has essentially told our young people who weren’t members of the “Lucky Sperm Club” with wealthy or legacy parents that they’re simply out of luck. And, as noted, the GOP is celebrating.
The damage to working class and poor Americans, both economic and human, is devastating. Even worse for America, it’s a double challenge for minorities.
And now the Supreme Court has essentially told our young people who weren’t members of the “Lucky Sperm Club” with wealthy or legacy parents that they’re simply out of luck. And, as noted, the GOP is celebrating.
Which raises the question: How gullible do these Republicans think their voters are?
Marjorie Taylor Greenewrote on Twitter that student loan forgiveness was “completely unfair.” She’s the same Republican congresswoman who had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven, and happily banked that government money without a complaint.
Republican members of Congress, in fact, seem to be among those in the front of the debt-forgiveness line with their hands out, even as billionaires bankroll their campaigns and backstop their lifestyles.
As the Center for American Progress noted on Twitter in response to a GOP tweet whining that, “If you take out a loan, you pay it back”:
Member —— Amount in PPP Loans Forgiven
Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) - $476,000
Greg Pence (R-Ind.) - $79,441
Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) - $2,800,000
Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) - $1,070,000
Roger Williams (R-Texas) - $1,430,000
Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) - $4,300,000
Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) $306,250
Ralph Abraham (R-Ala.) - $38,000
Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) - $974,100
Vicki Hartzler (R-Mo.) - $451,200
Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) - $988,700
Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) - $3,100,000
Every single one of these Republican members of Congress has echoed Greene’s criticism of student debt relief or supported efforts to block it. Every one eagerly welcomed forgiveness of their Covid-era debts.
So, yeah, Republicans are complete hypocrites about forgiving loan debt, in addition to pushing policies that actually hurt our nation (not to mention the generations coming up).
Ten thousand dollars in student debt forgiveness would have been a start, but if we really want America to soar, we need to go away beyond that.
Just like for-profit health insurance, student loans are a malignancy attached to our republic by Republicans trying to increase profits for their donors while extracting more and more cash from working-class families.
If Democrats can regain control of the House and hold the Senate and White House in 2024, they must not only zero-out existing student debt across our nation but revive the post-war government support for education—from Jefferson and Lincoln to the GI Bill and college subsidies—that the Reagan, Bush, Bush, and Trump administrations have destroyed.
Then, and only then, can the true “making America great again” begin.
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Biden Accused of 'Stabbing Student Debtors in the Back' With Response to SCOTUS Ruling
Biden's so-called Plan B "buys time for more baseless, bad faith, billionaire-backed lawsuits to get lined up with rogue judges eager to block anything that helps working people," fumed the Debt Collective.
Jun 30, 2023
Proponents of student debt cancellation reacted angrily Friday to what the leading activist group Debt Collective called President Joe Biden's "horseshit" response to the U.S. Supreme Court's invalidation of his proposal to forgive $400 billion worth of educational loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers.
In a Friday afternoon White House address, Biden vowed he was "not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers what they need, particularly those at the bottom end of the economic scale," and that his administration would create a "ramp repayment program" to help struggling debtors make their monthly loan payments when they resume in the autumn.
"I believe that the court's decision to strike down our student debt relief plan is wrong," Biden said. "But I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families."
That, the president said, includes invoking the Higher Education Act (HEA) in order to empower the Department of Education to deliver loan relief.
Biden urged patience, saying action is "gonna take more time" and tweeting that "we're moving as fast as we can."
"Not fast enough," Debt Collective co-founder Astra Taylor shot back.
"The problem is speed," Taylor wrote on Twitter. "This plan buys time for more baseless, bad faith, billionaire-backed lawsuits to get lined up with rogue judges eager to block anything that helps working people. Under HEA you can cancel debt immediately. That's what fighting looks like."
"Time is of the essence," Taylor stressed.
Debt Collective called Biden's so-called Plan B "worse than this morning's Supreme Court ruling."
"He is stabbing student debtors in the back. This is a deeply cynical approach they know will fail," the group said. "It is designed to make sure future administrations cannot cancel debt under the HEA."
"Today Biden joined the six conservatives on SCOTUS to make sure no student debt is coming," Debt Collective added.
Even before Biden's Friday speech, activists warned what inaction or inadequate action by Biden could mean.
“Democrats desperately need young people to turn out in 2024 and future elections," the youth-led progressive groups Debt Collective, Sunrise Movement, Gen Z for Change, Path to Progress, March for Our Lives, and United We Dream Action said in a joint statement published just before Biden's speech.
"Young people believed President Biden would deliver student debt abolition—not a costly return to repayment without a penny of the promised relief. Meanwhile, our skies are choked orange with wildfire smoke, and the average monthly student debt payment is north of $400 a month," the groups continued. "And from approving the Willow Project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, to their cruel asylum policies, President Biden cannot afford another disappointment with young people—a vital voting bloc for Democrats."
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'This Isn't the End,' Campaigners Say as Supreme Court Strikes Down Student Debt Relief
"The Supreme Court can strike this iteration of relief down, but it won't have the last word," said one organizer.
Jun 30, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday sided with a group of Republican attorneys general and struck down the Biden administration's student debt cancellation program, undercutting efforts to deliver relief to tens of millions of borrowers.
In a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, the high court's six conservative justices ruled that the GOP officials had standing to sue even though the Missouri student loan servicer they alleged would be harmed by the debt relief program was not part of the case.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which ruled that the emergency power the Biden administration cited—the 2003 HEROES Act—"does not authorize" the Education Department's debt cancellation program.
The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed a separate challenge to the student debt relief program brought by two individual plaintiffs whose lawsuit was funded by the billionaire-backed Job Creators Network Foundation.
In her dissent in Biden v. Nebraska, liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote that "at the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent."
"So in a case not a case," Kagan added, "the majority overrides the combined judgment of the legislative and executive branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans."
Debt relief campaigners pledged to keep up the fight, imploring the Biden administration to swiftly use his authority under the Higher Education Act of 1965 to enact broad-based debt cancellation.
"Debtors getting angry, hopeful, and organized is what put student debt cancellation on the political map," said Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective. "We've won billions of dollars of relief so far, and we're just getting started. The Supreme Court can strike this iteration of relief down, but it won't have the last word."
The Supreme Court's decision to block debt relief sets the stage for an economic disaster.
In October, after being paused during the coronavirus pandemic, student loan repayments are set to resume, leaving borrowers who are already struggling financially with hundreds of dollars in additional payments each month.
"Student loan relief is a promise from President Biden to more than 40 million families," said Melissa Byrne, a debt relief campaigner and executive director of We the 45 Million. "It is our chance for dignity. He must immediately implement a plan B including finding a different path to ensure no repayment begins until cancellation is delivered."
"Failure to deliver student loan relief," Byrne added, "is not an option."
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Manchin, Tester, and Sinema Join Senate GOP in 'Cruel' Vote to Repeal Biden Student Debt Relief
"Forty-five million people with student loan debt will never forget when politicians, led by Republican extremists, went out of their way to push millions of working families, including their own constituents, into economic catastrophe," said one advocate.
Jun 01, 2023
Economic justice advocates cried foul Thursday after the U.S. Senate passed legislation that aims to block President Joe Biden's pending student debt cancellation plan and reverse already-delivered relief.
Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), along with right-wing Independent Sen. Krysten Sinema (Ariz.), joined Senate Republicans in supporting H.J. Res. 45.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, which House Republicans approved last week with the help of Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), passed the Senate by a margin of 52-46. Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Mark Warner (Va.) didn't vote. The White House has vowed to veto the measure.
Passage of the legislation elicited a firestorm of criticism from progressive advocates and lawmakers.
"Forty-five million people with student loan debt will never forget when politicians, led by Republican extremists, went out of their way to push millions of working families, including their own constituents, into economic catastrophe by passing this reckless CRA resolution," Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce said in a statement.
"The American people are watching and expect President Biden to keep his promise to veto this horrendous bill."
The Biden administration's popular move to erase up to $20,000 in student debt for millions of federal borrowers with individual incomes below $125,000 and to improve the income-driven repayment (IDR) program is currently on hold as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a pair of deeply flawed legal challenges. A decision in the case is expected sometime this month, but right-wing lawmakers are doing everything in their power to sink the president's relief initiative regardless of how the high court rules.
Last week, the SBPC and the American Federation of Teachers warned of the "ruinous impact" H.J. Res. 45 would have on millions of working-class households nationwide, with AFT president Randi Weingarten condemning it as "an immoral clawback of the absolute worst kind."
In addition to blocking the potential cancellation of up to $20,000 in student debt per eligible borrower as well as money-saving changes to the IDR program, the CRA resolution would nullify the seventh and possibly eighth extensions of the federal student loan payment freeze first enacted by President Donald Trump in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, it would retroactively undo several months of already-canceled payments and waived interest charges, immediately leaving tens of millions of people past due on their loans.
Furthermore, the CRA resolution seeks to reinstate the student debt of more than 260,000 public service workers whose loan balances have been wiped clean since September 2022. If that were to happen, a combined debt burden of nearly $20 billion, which amounts to more than $72,000 per person, would be put back on the shoulders of teachers, nurses, first responders, and others who recently finished making 10 years of qualifying payments under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that was enacted on a bipartisan basis in 2007 and streamlined by the Biden administration in 2021.
"Despite right-wing proponents' attempts to gaslight their own colleagues and the American people on the impact of this bill, this effort would push hundreds of thousands of public service workers back into debt and require the government to charge tens of millions of borrowers for interest that has already been canceled," said Pierce. "If enacted, it will cause irreparable damage to an already severely broken student loan system and undermine Americans' trust in our government."
"Today's vote makes crystal clear exactly who stood up and fought to protect the economic livelihoods of millions of people with student loan debt—and who schemed to keep them drowning in the debt despair of our nation's student loan crisis," he added. "The American people are watching and expect President Biden to keep his promise to veto this horrendous bill and deliver on his promise of student loan debt relief once and for all."
Ahead of a Wednesday vote to bring H.J. Res. 45 to the Senate floor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that "Republicans in Congress have shown time and time again that they'd much rather deliver relief to giant corporations and protect tax cheats than help working Americans whose biggest sin was trying to get an education."
On Thursday, the Massachusetts lawmaker called the bill's passage "shameful," and expressed confidence that Biden "will veto" it. Congress doesn't appear to have the two-thirds majority in each chamber needed to override a veto.
Ahead of Thursday's vote, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, stressed that "this Republican bill wouldn't only rip away relief for borrowers who qualify under the president's plan."
"This CRA could impact the pause on loan payments and cause major problems for borrowers who have received relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven repayment programs," Murray continued. "That means these Republican efforts could create the perfect storm for more than 260,000 public service workers who have already earned relief."
"Today's vote makes crystal clear exactly who stood up and fought to protect the economic livelihoods of millions of people with student loan debt—and who schemed to keep them drowning."
"If Republicans were to get their way and pass this bill into law," she added, "people across the country would have relief they are counting on snatched away from them, plans they have made upended, less money in their pockets, and monthly payments not just abruptly restarted—but maybe even abruptly jacked up by hundreds of dollars."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the HELP committee, echoed that sentiment.
"Republicans' cruel attempt to stand in the way of President Biden's plans to provide relief to tens of millions of Americans suffering under the crushing weight of student loan debt is damaging to our economy and wildly out of touch with the financial realities facing working families," said Markey.
"The loan forgiveness the president is proposing would mean the difference between buying a home, starting a business, and getting an economic leg up for nearly 50 million working and middle-class Americans, particularly for borrowers of color and their families," he concluded. "If you kicked Republicans in the heart, you'd break your toe."
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