Student-Loan Meltdown

It's truly amazing to see one of America's political parties actually coming through for the poor and middle class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are bought and paid for by big money interests, so it should be applauded when they actually get something done for the nation's working class. Right?

This is exactly what happened when Joe Biden announced that student-loan debts will be partially forgiven for citizens earning less than $125,000 annually. Individuals making less than $125,000 will qualify for $10,000 in forgiveness and $10,000 more if you received a Pell Grant. According to the White House this would "provide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including cancelling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers." (source) Biden commented that:

"All this means people can start finally crawling up from under that mountain of debt, to get on top of their rent and utilities, to finally think about buying a home or starting a family, starting a business. And by the way, when this happens, the whole economy is better off."
_{source: Insider}

One of the reasons why young Americans don't start a family or a business after college, is the weight of this student-loan debt on their shoulders, a fact perfectly expressed by Biden's comment: "That's 20 million people who can start getting on with their lives." This relief plan has even more benefits that aren't discussed that much, like the fact that monthly payments can now be capped at 5% of your income, and that any remaining debts will be forgiven after making monthly payments for 10 years, which is shortened from 20 years. It's not the full cancellation many progressives like myself hoped for, but with this announcement Biden does exactly what he'd promised during the election campaign.

Unfortunately, conservatives reacted immediately by calling student-loan relief "unfair," even going so far as to say it's a politically motivated measure in order to win votes for the upcoming mid-term elections. There's a lot to criticize the Democratic Party and Joe Biden for, but simply honoring a campaign promise, one that actually helps people in need, is not it. One could even argue that the party of the "nuclear family" should support any measure that increases the likelihood of young Americans starting a family while they're still young and fertile. But no, all we get from them is a lot of pearl-clutching, whining about how this is unfair towards those who didn't apply for a loan, or the ones who paid their debt in full. This is so stupid and disingenuous; people who don't need the loan are clearly wealthy enough in the first place. Or their parents are.

What really makes me angry though, is that these are the same people who didn't bat an eye every time the rich or large corporations received yet another tax-cut or government subsidy. A lot of the pearl-clutchers even received hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions of dollars of loan-forgiveness from the government for the Payroll Protection Program loans they got during the height of the pandemic. Of the 11.5 million PPP loans, 10.2 million have been partially or fully forgiven. The average dollar amount forgiven was $72,500. Of the 707 borrowers receiving the maximum amount of $10 million, 625 loans have been partially or fully forgiven. (source). Sure, those were different loans for different purposes in different circumstances, but for these people to shout that "if you take out a loan, you pay it back," is cringeworthy to put it mildly. Watch the included videos to sample some of the cringe and Joe Biden's based (for once) response.

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