That way they get to say, "Vote for us and save money, don't and the Republicans will drain you dry."
They...aren't. I mean, while the rules on issuing them haven’t changed, the rules on repaying them have in ways which are designed to avoid the problem prompting the broad, one-time relief. Attention on the one-time forgiveness program seems to have distracted from non-one-time changes to:
(1) Alter the calculation of disposable income for income based repayment to reduce the income considered disposable, and reduce the required share of disposable income paid under income driven repayment plans (which have automatic forgiveness after a set # of payments.)
(2) process reforms to public service loan forgiveness to expand practical eligibility,
(3) limitations on capitalizing interest for student loans,
(4) reforms to how the executive branch handles undue hardship claims in bankruptcy so that their are clear criteria under which DoJ will stipulate to undue hardship, making it less cumbersome to secure discharge in bankruptcy,
(5) expanded eligibility and streamlined process for Borrower Defense to Repayment for those affected by deceit/fraud by schools,
(6) Closed-School Discharges for those impacted by schools closing during attendance,
(7) Streamlined process for forgiveness in the Total and Permanent Disability program.
As someone who made great sacrifices, to pay off my loans immediately after graduation. I could not be more vexxed at the current administrations policy on this, over any policy executed with executive authority in my life time. I fully paid off my loans just before covid started.
I received pell grants, I worked full time while in school. I drove, maintained a 15 year old car, and live with roomates.
Additionally the amount of sound clips and articles, I hear because of this policy in America calling for more relieve. Makes me far more conservative than I would have ever been.
I also left out a rant on the deficit the US has.
Weird anti liberal-arts slander aside, the vast majority of people unable to pay off their student loans - most of whom have been trying to do so - are far closer to the former implied end of the socioeconomic spectrum than the latter.
Not that it actually matters - your question is disingenuous to begin with.
Poor fast food workers almost certainly pay zero-to-negative net income tax (negative potential becaue of EITC), so…they wouldn’t pay forgiveness for anyone.
In a world where the Fed both had the capacity and the desire to selectively exclude the effects of particular fiscal actions from its monetary policy calculations and, specifically, to do so for student loan forgiveness, this might actually be a sensible question.
I don’t think that is coincidental. Why would someone support a political party besides thinking that its policies generally were the ones that make things “get better” of the available alternatives?
I would also say that while I sympathize with your position kids today are looking at even larger debts and wider housing deficits. Debt forgiveness won't solve everything there but I'd put the blame on the Congress rather than the people trying to do something to help.
The deficit, at this level, is unimportant. The US will not retire, therefore there is no end date for the payment of its debts. The inflation it is experiencing at the moment is eating away at the base of the debt level while the interest rate is still far below the amount of inflation.
Rather than rethinking the badly designed severely leaking joint in a gas main, this is just wrapping some tape around the joint.
You can band aid symptoms all you like, but real change and improvement means fixing the source of the issue
What if you did one time forgiveness while also reforming existing discharge and repayment systems so as to prevent the problem solved by one-time forgiveness from recurring?
Asking because that's what the current admin has been doing through executive action, its just all the media attention has been on forgiveness.
You mean what if you did wrap the leaking gas main with tape now, but also put in place a more efficient system to wrap it again next time it needs it?
Sure, that's a better band aid.
The better solution would be to not have high education that it so damn expensive, and to not allow predatory lending for it that puts young people into crushing debt forever.
Australia used to have free university, now it has an interest free loan from the government. You get loaned something like $5k/year for tuition[1], and for the rest of your life you pay it back as a few extra percent income tax. If you never earn over a certain threshold (maybe you're an artist earning not much, maybe you're a high power lawyer that wants to donate your time), you never pay it back, and that's how it's designed to work. (Current threshold is $55k/year).
If a little country like Australia can afford to make that system work, I'm confident the richest country that has ever existed can too.
[1] students that need more money for housing/food/etc get an allowance from the government for that. It's not a loan, you don't pay it back. Right now it's a touch over $1k/month for a full time student living away from home. https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/how-much-youth-allowanc...