President Joe Biden is considering extending the freeze on federal student loan payments that are currently scheduled to resume next month, according to Bloomberg.
âWhile progressives push Biden to cancel federal student debt entirely, some Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have pushed the President to embrace forgiving at least $50,000 in student debt for all.â
Doing their best to hand our country back to the Republicans.
Electorally an obvious move.
Heâs been mulling this over for what seems likes months now.
Just a note that those who carry FFEL loans are still out in the cold on the payment pause, even though they are pretty much still federal loans and at one point many students were directed toward those loans by their schoolâs financial aid department (or it was the only option available).
So fucking do it. JFC.
However, the President and his advisers are worried about making an announcement on forgiveness amid growing inflation, according to Bloomberg.
Same excuse Manchin gave for killing Bidenâs BBB bill and just as bad as reason for not fulfilling his student loan forgiveness promise.
Hardly. You want to be the one to tell a blue-collar non-college-degree individual working for Uber and doordash and whatnot seeing their net income fall through the floor over the last months as gas has gone through the roof, let alone the rest of their expenses, that some Harvard Law grad chilling in a 6-figure position is getting $10K in cash from Papa Joe?
And they shouldâve made better life choices and gone to college, and then they, too, might get free cash?
Yeah, true student loan reform needs to include an option for FFEL holders to refinance through the proper Direct loan program including whatever forgiveness amount given to them. Unfortunately, thatâs not something Biden can do through an executive order.
Um, from my perspective, most of the cost was passed on to the customers. It was way more expensive to Uber the last time I used it.
And you think that got passed back to the âindependent contractorâ drivers? Or right into corporate coffers.
Iâd bet there was some reimbursement for gas. Are you an Uber driver?
To compensate drivers for rising gas prices, Uber introduced a temporary fuel surcharge last month. Consumers must now pay an additional 45 cents or 55 cents on each ride and either 35 cents or 45 cents on each Uber Eats order, depending on the location.
Not nearly enough, and the ride was lots more than 35 or 45 cents. I guess weâre all getting the short end of the stick.
this idea that there are folks who donât need it getting the money never really rings true to me.
There were plenty (perhaps a plurality?) of folks at my grad school - a highly competitive private institution pursuing a course of study that eventuates not in doctor / lawyer level money, though with an equal level of licensure / responsibility etc. - whoâs parents paid for their tuition while the rest of us took loans to cover it. Those of us who are paying this at the usuary level interest rates still find it hard to fully participate in the economy the way we would if we didnât have $1500 a month payment⌠to the government 7.5% interest is not good for anyone.
One other thing, if thereâs no forgiveness, just having the interest alleviated for the time it has has gone a VERY long way to helping those of us still paying while the freeze is on pay down the debt. Itâs never been quite clear to me why the federal government should be profiting so handsomely from folks doing what weâve been told is the âright thingâ, while those whoâs parents just forked out the cash get to start that far ahead.
By all accounts, Biden is looking likely to means-test his loan forgiveness, so those 6-figure Harvard Law grads are not likely to get it.
10k forgiveness with means-testing looks to be the best to maximize the benefit to the most sympathetic borrowers (i.e. first gen college students, didnât complete college, low-income, etc).
That approach also appears to be the most popular:
Honestly, Iâm just tired of hearing the âwill he or wonât heâ reporting of the loan forgiveness. Either do it or say its off the table. This Manchin-style stringing out the decision to the âright timeâ is exhausting and damaging.
Pshhh just do it already, the 10k was a campaign promises. Saying you might not do it because itâs better for inflation if people are broke is a lame excuse.
God almighty, if I have to hear one more time about what Joe Biden is thinking about doing, Iâm going to jump out a window.
Thatâs what Iâm thinking. How many times has this been extended? Rather than just doing the pause and forgiveness once, and having Americans forget about the hand that just fed them, heâs keeping the issue alive. There is some logic in that.
Iâd be all over capping interest rates at a low and reasonable level.
But this group of folks at grad school-- as a group, youâre already way ahead of your peers who never could afford to take the college route and are working their way through the walmarts and mcdonaldâs and driving for the gig economy.
Especially as theyâre taking hits in exploding rents, gas, groceries and everything else, why would your debt burden-- in loans that have helped you (again as a group) to get jobs that are paying much more-- be of so much importance that we need to pay your debts off, but they get nothing?
If they do this broadly, thereâs going to be a massive backlash and from a lot of different corners, and a major turnoff in what should be an easy election to win.
A-yup. And itâs a signal lesson to the fauxgressives about the whole policy-having-real-world-consequences-you-might-not-like thingy. There is no decision Joe can make here that will not inflame with white hot anger a large voting bloc somewhereâfollowed, natch, by threats to sit on their thumbs come November.
I suspect the best he can do is $10,000 of forgiveness per borrower plus removing interest on the loans. The people who have yet to borrow money for college, or who have already paid off their loans will, of course, drive themselves into an apoplectic rage about the unfairness and the betrayal and they will shriek that they will never, ever, vote for a Democrat again, but this might mitigate the fall-out.
I suspect that what weâll get is a means-tested forgiveness (like the one leaked recently), plus an informal interest cancellation. People will still be pissed, but there will probably be fewer threats to put the GQP in power, in a classic fauxgressive cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-your-face gesture.
Depends, I think on how itâs done. With apologies to Machiavelli, who advised the prince to dribble out good news over time, but announce the bad all at onceâ I think the immediate forgiveness of $10,000 and an extension of the moratorium will gain votes, not lose any.
I think forgiving $50,000 at once would be a sure electoral loser, but holding out the promise of further reductions over time, consistent with economic conditions and the biblical injunction to forgive longterm indebtedness, might work, especially if the Republicans (predictably) attack itâŚ, thus allowing the Democrats to campaign against Trump and his multitude of bankruptcies.