this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Although the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s signature student loan forgiveness program in late June, his administration has found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then.

The cancellations have come through existing federal student loan forgiveness programs, which are limited to specific categories of borrowers, such as public-sector workers, people defrauded by for-profit colleges, and borrowers who have paid for at least 20 years.

These programs are separate from the rejected forgiveness plan, which would have canceled about $430 billion of the $1.6 trillion of outstanding federal student loan debt all at one time.

The Biden administration has been granting student loan forgiveness through these existing programs on a rolling basis since coming into office and has discharged a total of $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million people to date.

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago (12 children)

“The Biden administration is trampling the rule of law, hurting borrowers, and abusing taxpayers to chase headlines,” Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement at the time.

I'm trying to understand this in good faith, which is probably a mistake. In what way could this possibly harm borrowers? I literally can't see a way that you could even imply that.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago

Never take anything a Republican says as though it were in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same reason mortgages can have "early payment penalties".

Paying them off now is less money than if it takes a decade of interest.

Someone should remind the Republicans Jesus was cool with loans, but a Christian who charges interest goes straight to hell. It's why back in the day most bankers were Jewish and why all the stereotypes about money came into being. Wealthy Christians wouldn't loan without interest because they loved money more than helping others.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Same reason mortgages can have "early payment penalties".

They can't anymore

The Dodd-Frank Act in 2014 made them illegal thankfully.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn’t Virginia Foxx the same piece of shit that screamed at a reporter for asking about the new speaker’s role in the coup attempt?

Just checked, she is. She is engaging in typical Republican double speak and nothing about her argument is in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The more you learn about her the shittier she is. She's just a truly shitty person. She definitely yells at Wal-Mart employees over shit they don't control.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

Never in history has a conservative entered any debate or conversation in good faith. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. Every word.

We should be teaching our children why we never believe the words of a conservative.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Debt cancellation =/= taxpayer paying off the debt. It's drawing a line under it, saying that the lenders have already profited their fair amount from the debt and cannot claim any more.

People claiming entitlement to ongoing profit is such bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Loans aren't meant to help people. They are meant to generate interest. People who invest in the lenders are technically going to lose money here. But it ain't you and me investing in the profits of student loans. And if you are, you need a smarter portfolio that doesn't rely on the world burning.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you're investing, your principal is not guaranteed. Every fucking broker has that written in bold font on their website.

I'm so fucking tired of investors privatizing their profits but socializing their losses. I shouldn't have to pay some greedy asshole just because they overextended themselves.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is something that came to a head in the 2008 recession. Most people, left and right leaning, were not happy with the fact that banks got our tax money, and the homeowner got virtually nothing. This was one of the reasons Occupy Wall Street protests started, and it was one aspect of the Tea Party's organization with there protest of the TARP Program. Though they were arguing for a different solution, less spending overall.

But this idea that the government is more than willing to throw money at large, "to big to fail", businesses but are loathed to do the same for the individual was more universal than what is seen today.

Anecdotally I've talked with people that have much more conservative views on spending and government debt but the one place that seems to have an agreement is that the American people got screwed in 2008 - 2009. While there are many ideological things that divide people in America I believe that this feeling that the American government is more willing to help out large companies (legally, monetarily, and even militarily) than it is to it's citizens is more ubiquitous than is played out in the major media outlets.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We need to provide welfare to corporations and the investor class! We need to think about them and the children! They all clearly need help unlike those dirty, poors. The poors can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

God even making me think about the poors just makes this country feel socialist. I don't like this commie-talk.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

90% of student loans are owned by the federal government. They get the interest. Those are the only loans that are eligible for forgiveness. There's no lenders losing anything.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

OK, arguments I can think of, which I could see being made with sincerity, and that could support the assertion that this is harming borrowers.

  • By continuing to promote the idea of student loan forgiveness, Biden is giving false hope to millions of borrowers who are waiting for their loans to go away when they should be focusing on paying them off as quickly as they can, or refinancing them to make them more manageable.
  • Student loan forgiveness doesn't help future borrowers, who will be getting just as much debt.
  • Forgiving student loans and setting an expectation that loans will be forgiven takes away what little pressure exists on colleges to keep tuition down.
  • It costs money, which will contribute to the national debt and that hurts all of us, including borrowers.

.

That's the best I can come up with. And obviously none of that compares to the harm of being economically crippled by student loans, and the relief that forgiveness would mean for borrowers.

And of course, absent from all this is any kind of alternative plan to address the issue. I can understand not wanting to forgive loans without also reforming the system to prevent this situation from happening again. But instead, all they've offered is a cap on how much students can borrow, and a bill that would force repayment plans to be on worse terms than the plan the Biden administration had already announced it was implementing.

The only GOP plan that I can recall that actually seemed like it was intended to help borrowers was Rubio's proposal to eliminate interest on all student loans. So of course it was dead on arrival.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just getting rid of the interest would be a huge relief. I don't mind that I payed back what I borrowed. I do mind that I payed back almost 4 times what I borrowed.

That being said, higher education State Schools should be free. You wanna charge tuition and be a private college, and stop taking government subsidies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So these arguments are not great, your first one relies on an assertion that you don't back up

they should be focusing on paying them off

Why should that individual do anything? Is it more optimal? The situation we are in is lots of people can't afford to do what they "should" do.

The other thing they don't address is where this money goes. What benefits do the post secondary institutions reap from higher and higher tuition fees? Is there utility in continuing that access to funds or are caps on profit and spending overnight things that we should consider?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I'm trying to understand this in good faith, which is probably a mistake.

Yes. Why would you do that?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

She probably thinks it's teaching them bad habits. These borrowers will probably go on to do drugs and think that they don't even need to pay their dealers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

These borrowers will probably go on to do drugs and think that they don't even need to pay their dealers.

What is he gonna do, call the cops?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

how does this hurt borrowers

The GOP believes that every person is a small child and that not paying your loans equates to a moral failure from which you will learn to never pay any debts ever again

Unless they're business loans, in which case it's a moral failure of society to not give you free money.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All these students needed to do is create a fake company and get a PPP loan. Then use tha money to pay their student loan. Lots of conservatives got PPP loans and any unpaid PPP loans were forgiven.

/s

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

You put that '/s' one sentence too late

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What kills me is that these rocket surgeons are blaming Biden for these forgiveness programs when the public service loan forgiveness plan was enacted almost 20 years ago by George Bush...

Either they're that history blind or they're desperate morons, praying the rest of the uneducated masses will just blindly go along with whatever they claim is true... Probably both... Who am I kidding!? Of course it's both!

This should have been a fact checking article. Instead it's just perpetuating the narrative that Biden is doing something wrong.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes but the PSLF had an abysmal approval percentage up until Biden. The department of education did everything to deny, deny deny.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And the loan agencies certainly don't want you to know about it either! Mine played dumb until I cited the section about my job, then suddenly it was "Oh that, right! We'll get you set right up!"

My last payment is next year and I just can't wait to see what they've fucked up because of covid...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Bruh just pray that Biden wins cause if he doesn't the PLSF goes back to deny everything

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Clearly only a republican administration is allowed to break the glass during an emergency

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah the biggest win was the change to repayment plans. If you get on an income based repayment plan and make your payments for 20 years, the rest will be forgiven, and the monthly payment can be $0 if your income is low enough. That sounds like a long time, but it makes it so these are not forever loans anymore, with more obvious financial benefit to students to pursue a degree.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure you actually have to be paying each month to qualify.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

If your payment is $0 based on your income, staying in appropriate contact with your loan servicer and maintaining your IDR paperwork means that those "$0 payments" each month count towards the 120 (PSLF) or 240 (20 year forgiveness) qualifying payments.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They wouldn't have to be forever loans if they weren't exempt from bankruptcy, but Joe showed up for Corporate America on that one. People are kind of just ignoring that he put his stamp of approval on screwing over America's college students.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

It's not joeover

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Brandon gets my vote.

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