Sanders to propose canceling $1.6 trillion in US student debt

[brooklynite]

The Hill

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will reportedly unveil a bill Monday calling on all $1.6 trillion worth of U.S. student debt to be eliminated.

The Washington Post reports Sanders will propose the legislation Monday along with progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The proposal from Sanders adds to the debate over how to address the country’s mounting student debt crisis, as other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have proposed their own plans.

Sanders’s plan calls on the federal government to completely clear the student debt of 45 million Americans while also calling for public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free.

[LibFarmer]

1. Where will the money come from?

What about people who have already paid off their student debt by living frugally and denying themselves the niceties of life?

[HerbChestnut]

7. Did you read the article?

Last edited Mon Jun 24, 2019, 11:16 AM - Edit history (1)

Because there's information in regards to financing. As for your second question, I don't really know what to say. I guess we should go back in time to when Medicare was enacted and somehow reimburse the senior citizens who paid for healthcare out of pocket before it passed?

Edit: Spelling

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

49. Bernie, gets it!! Why he's the "people's choice" and taking the country by storm!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[oldsoftie]

55. Yes, it says "A Wall St tax". Nothing more. 200 billion a year?

So if he's going to pay off 1.6 trillion with 200 billion a year, is he also going to stop interest from accruing? And how to pay for the NEW college students each year; who he wants to be able to go to college for FREE? How much more does THAT cost?

[HerbChestnut]

68. The article in the OP just skimmed the basics.

There is another article on CNN that goes into a bit more detail.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/23/politics/bernie-sanders-student-loan-debt-cancellation/index.html

And of course the full legislation will be released today so keep an eye out for that.

[FBaggins]

78. Your example isn't parallel

With Medicare, those who had already paid for some healthcare received the service and paid for it. Going forward from that point, some people wouldn't have to pay (or pay as much)... but that was for future services. Everyone was treated the same before and after the change. That doesn't create a perception that making good decisions hurt someone while making bad ones helped.

In this case, some people have received the service and paid for it... and other have received the service but have not yet paid for it. The second group will essentially be told retroactively that they don't need to pay for it.

[HerbChestnut]

79. The point is...

whenever a country starts a program like this, there is going to be a start date where the program takes effect no matter how you slice it. I've been paying off student loans for years and will not complain that the thousands of dollars I've already paid into them won't be refunded. My significant other will finish paying theirs off in a few months and was ecstatic when they heard about Bernie's plan (and Warren's for that matter). Paying off people's student loans will release a huge burden from millions of people's lives and will have the added effect of boosting the economy because those people will suddenly have and extra $500-$2000 per month to spend or save to buy things like a new car, house, etc. The mindset of "I suffered so therefore so should you" is unhealthy and, in this case, unproductive.

[FBaggins]

89. The argument still suffers from the same issue

whenever a country starts a program like this, there is going to be a start date where the program takes effect no matter how you slice it.

True... but in this case that isn't really what is happening.

IF the program was "going forward college will be provided by the government" then it would fit that model and everyone would be treated equally. But this plan doesn't really have a start date where the change takes effect, because people who consumed the service five years ago but never paid for it now have a "start date" five years earlier than others.

Paying off people's student loans will release a huge burden from millions of people's lives

And add it to the national debt while other people pay it off. The debt doesn't go away.

The mindset of "I suffered so therefore so should you" is unhealthy and, in this case, unproductive.

Except that isn't the mindset at all. It's "I made wise decisions with money while you made foolish ones... yet you pay no price for that mistake". Actually... it's worse than that since the person who completed college without taking on debt is far more likely to have the investments that are getting taxed to pay for the plan. Which means that many of the people who made the "wise decisions with money" are not just watching others avoid the price for poor decisions... they're paying for them themselves.

It's much like the huge banks that made stupid decisions that should have put them out of business... only to have the government retroactively fix their problem. That would be bad enough on its own... but there were banks that didn't make those stupid decisions who would have benefited from the stupid banks going under... and they never got to reap the reward of their comparatively good behavior.

Moral hazard. Governments sometimes pick winners and losers because that's the nature of government policymaking. But picking them retroactively is unwise.

[HerbChestnut]

93. It's different in that the cost of college has basically become a racket.

Within the last 15-20 years, the cost of college has skyrocketed. Everything from textbooks, tuition, fees, meal plans, housing, etc. costs significantly more now than it did a couple of decades ago, yet the necessity of a college education has never been greater. Sure, there's good paying jobs that don't require much education, but not everybody wants to be an electrician or a plumber. Want to be a teacher? That's 5+ years of undergraduate and graduate courses. Want to be a computer programmer? That's 4+ years of college. Accountant? 4+ years. Researcher? Likely 8+ years. Then there's the barrier of entry into the workforce. Entry level jobs these days often require 2, 3, 4+ years of experience in addition to a degree. Want to change careers? Good luck with that. Remember being younger and everyone told you going to college would result in a high paying job? I remember. That message was hammered into myself and everyone I went to high school with. You know who else was listening? College administrators, Sallie Mae, loan sharks. If the ratio between the cost of college and job salaries remained the same, then I'd be more willing to agree with you, but that has not been the case. People are making money hand over fist from others just trying to get an education and better themselves financially and in other ways. It's a broken system, and it has been for a long time.

[FBaggins]

96. Ironically... that's mostly because government has been paying for it.

When they increase the amount of grants/loans they supply, the cost to the student doesn't go down... the price of the school goes up.

Interesting that part of his "solution" is for government to pay the whole thing. That's certainly not going to drive the price down.

yet the necessity of a college education has never been greater

I don't agree... but I accept that many think it is so.

The problem with your post is that you're just restating the issue. You can't support a propose solution by just restating that there is a problem.

If the ratio between the cost of college and job salaries remained the same, then I'd be more willing to agree with you,

The problem here is that none of this is secret. Some people picked schools that were way too expensive for the degree they selected (assuming they even finished). We have people who took on way more debt than they could afford, not just to go to the school they wanted... but also so they didn't have to work while they were in school (gotta get that "college experience" ya know?). Some people shouldn't have targeted that private school with the great football team and greek life/culture. They should have picked the state school that had the same quality education with a much cheaper sticker price. Some people sacrificed their first choice of school so that they could graduate without debt (or even sacrificed two years of that "experience" because community college could be financed with their part-time job).

Want to change careers? Good luck with that.

Why should you financially support my decision to change careers? It's fine for government to offer a hand up when an industry disappears due to technological change or trade deals that the government signed. But just because I changed my mind?

[MichMan]

11. I guess we will just feel like suckers

Many people tried to live very frugally, attended community college and sacrificed to pay them off. Should have just borrowed the max and not paid any of it back I guess

[HerbChestnut]

18. Many people are still living frugally, attending community college, and are sacrificing to pay

them off. They're still bogged down. Student loan debt exceeds $1.5T in this country, and it's only getting worse. Elizabeth Warren's plan would pay off student loan debt for thousands, maybe millions, of people and nobody complained. Bernie's would clear it for everybody and all of a sudden it's a problem.

Edit: Spelling and Grammar

[LibFarmer]

38. ...

You don't understand the anguish of people who worked 2 jobs, saved money for a car by eating ramen noodles and then the neighbor who partied all the time gets a free car.

Anything for Senator BS - he can do no wrong.

[HerbChestnut]

66. Wow, that's a pretty large assumption.

Then again, I've been partying so hard with all my old college buddies that you might be on to something. Praise The Bern!

...

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

50. Bernie understands this... why he's a true "man of the people"!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[oldsoftie]

54. Yeah, right. With no REAL way to pay for all his giveaways.

REAL way. The money he thinks he can raise is WAY over stated.

[HerbChestnut]

67. Is it?

Do you have the math to back up that claim?

[oldsoftie]

72. Yes. The math shows that we cannot raise TRILLIONS by taxing a small segment of the population

If you want to provide what the other countries provide, then you need to tax the way the other countries tax. And Yang is the only candidate who proposes to do that. But then he adds in "1000 bucks a month for everybody!" and goes off the rails there.

[HerbChestnut]

76. You're not providing any sources.

What math? Where are you getting this information from?

[FBaggins]

94. Has Bernie?

If he even has such a calculation... does it take into account that taxes of that size change behaviors? And that some of those behavioral changes also have a cost?

What if market transactions occur far less frequently because investors want to avoid the tax? What if the resultant lost off liquidity in the market (from the loss of the "market makers&quot not only dry up the expected income but also drops the market by well over the $2Trillion he was hoping to get in the first place?

[HerbChestnut]

95. Do you have any studies showing a change in stock trading behavior as a result of similar policy?

Because until you show me that, then everything you've said until this point is pure speculation.

[FBaggins]

97. You mean ECON 101?

I don't have to prove that changing the price of a thing changes the behavior of people who consume that thing. That's a basic axiom of economics. The burden of proof would be on anyone who thought that their proposal was an exception.

Take arbitrage for example. Stock XYZ is traded on both the London exchange and NYSE. It trades at $100/share and heavy trading in NY drives the stock up by $.25/share (or perhaps there's a currency value shift with the same effect). The stock in London should go from 79.53 pounds (at current exchange) to 78.72.

The thing that makes that happen is called arbitrage. The moment the disparity occurs, someone with large sums will simultaneously buy and sell that stock in the two markets until the price levels out to be the same in both places (as it should be because it's the same company). That might take trading 100,000 shares (requiring $10million in capital). Little investors rarely have access to multiple markets and such rapid trading... but without arbitrage (and other market-making forces), consumers can't know that they're getting the right price.

The arbitrage-er makes a really quick $10-15k on the transaction. But add a $50k tax on both the purchase and sale? Obviously that trade isn't going to happen. That 0.5% tax is actually substantially larger than LOTS of market-making transactions. That MUST have a substantial impact on the markets themselves (not just to the rich market-makers)

[oldsoftie]

99. But it will feel good. So it must be OK!

[HerbChestnut]

100. In that example, you're right, but that's an extreme case.

Most stock trades involve sums of money significantly smaller than $10m. On the NYSE, the average cost per transaction is somewhere around $25k (Source: publicly available NYSE data that is scattered around the internet, numbers that are very rough). The 0.5% tax would add $127 to the average NYSE transaction. Multiply that by the average number of daily transactions (roughly 2.5 million) X 365 days X 10 years and you get roughly $1.2T over a ten year period from the NYSE alone. Throw in other markets and it's not hard to see where the $2T+ comes from. Will some stock behavior change as a result of an extra -0.5% rate of return? Maybe a little, but probably not for the person investing $25k.

Disclaimer: These numbers are rough. Very rough. But they were the best I could find on short notice.

[oldsoftie]

98. Easy. Raising the cigarette tax caused a reduction in the number of smokers.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204416

The "luxury tax" years ago caused a huge drop in the number of luxury boats made & sold in the US. People went elsewhere. People HERE lost their jobs.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-06-09-1991160128-story.html

How many examples do you want?

When you tax a behavior above a certain level, you get less of that behavior. And by extension, less tax revenue.

[HerbChestnut]

101. Yeah, stocks and cigarettes/boats are completely different animals.

You think drug education might have had something to do with the decreased use of cigarettes? I'd say probably. And boats are an optional luxury. Stock trading is a way for people to make money. A 0.5% tax on a single transaction won't stop someone from making that transaction if they think they'll make money anyway.

[oldsoftie]

104. Well, you think post #97 is an extreme example (its not), so none of this is logical to you

But it would only matter if Sanders were to win the election, and right now, Warren is slowly taking his votes with much slimmer ideas.

[LibFarmer]

69. That bill won't even pass the committee

It is just an election time stunt

[customerserviceguy]

26. Nowhere

Because the Senate will not pass this bill, and we all know Trump won't sign it, so it is just an election ploy by Sanders to grab a headline for a day or two.

[LibFarmer]

36. So you agree it is just a stunt for the election season? nt

[customerserviceguy]

103. Absolutely n/t

[Cha]

47. This piece hits on a key difference: Warren is shaping her policy to target assistance to those who

Link to tweet

[Autumn]

65. Their life will go on.

If their loans are paid off they aren't struggling.

[Vegas Roller]

2. Another slogan and platitude

for the election season. It will never pass anyway … but if it gets millennials to get excited, it would be the most cynical way of getting votes.

[HerbChestnut]

17. Yes, changing the lives of millions of people is cynical.

Yikes. And it's not just millennials that would be affected by this legislation (or EW's for that matter). GenZ is graduating college, and GenX has hefty loans as well. Student loan debt exceeds $1.6T. Think about that number. Think about all the people, all the families that are being bogged down financially just because they got an education. It's insane.

[Vegas Roller]

35. In your eyes Senator BS cando no wrong

I get it.

[HerbChestnut]

63. That's right

He is the savior. Praise the messiah!

[Vegas Roller]

74. Thank you for your honesty.

[Laelth]

70. I am a Gen-Xer who's still struggling with student loans.

I am enthused by Bernie's proposal. I know that the Senate will never pass this bill, but I very much like that the issue of student loan debt is being discussed and that a bill on this subject will be brought to committee if not to the floor of the Senate. I want this issue front and center in our political discourse, and I applaud both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for making student loan debt a key issue in the upcoming election.

-Laelth

[Vegas Roller]

73. Even the Democratic house won't pass it

It is a unicorn offered to the naïve just to get votes.

There is no money for this and the magical stock market tax will hit primarily middle class and reflect in their 401Ks because the biggest traders on the market are mutual funds.

What next? Mortgage relief for all? Auto loan relief for all?

[Laelth]

75. I understand all of that.

Nevertheless, I like seeing this issue discussed. At some point, we're going to have to do something about this problem.

-Laelth

[HerbChestnut]

3. This would be life changing for so many people.

Too many people have so much student loan debt that buying a house, starting a family, or saving for retirement are only pipe dreams. Good for Bernie, Ilhan, and Pramila.

[SkatmanRoth]

52. +1

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

90. Life changing beyond belief!! Bernie gets it, which is why he keeps surging.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[RandySF]

4. Suddenly, Elizabeth Warren is controlling the policy debate.

What is in it for more mainstream Dems to embrace Bernie over her?

[HerbChestnut]

13. Bernie's camp has been hinting at this type of legislation since before he announced his campaign.

EW released her plan first, sure, but a piece of legislation like this takes months to create. They're like-minded candidates. Either one would make a great president. We will be better able to compare them policy-wise as the campaigns progress and more specific proposals are released.

[SkatmanRoth]

53. Elizabeth Warren will make a good Vice President

Progressives to the front!

[captain queeg]

5. I kind of look at this like buying votes

Then I think of the huge tax cuts the 1% got and I’d certainly rather see young people just starting out reap the benefits. Still, taxes will need to go up to cover the previous tax cuts, I guess they’ll go up more to cover this idea. But increased taxes need to fall heavily on the rich.

[shanny]

27. Hmmm yes

Btw republicans said that about SS, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, proposed universal health care.

If a party passes something that helps Americans--and incidentally the economy, 'cause we all do better with a well-educated work force that can build for the future--it earns my vote.

[Renew Deal]

6. How does he plan to pay for tuition free school?

Somebody has to pay. Who will it be?

[HerbChestnut]

10. Read the article.

Also, the full piece of legislation will be released tomorrow.

[msongs]

8. he can help pay for it by cancelling the equally expensive F35 program...and others nt

[shanny]

28. There's an idea!

[USALiberal]

9. What about the people who broke their ass to pay off their debt? Nt

[HerbChestnut]

12. Ask Elizabeth Warren.

Her plan would cancel the student loan debt for thousands, maybe millions, of people too. Bernie's just clears it for everybody.

[Nanjeanne]

15. I paid off mine and I'd be thrilled if the younger gen doesn't have to struggle.

I don’t have a problem with something good happening for others.

Thanks to Reps Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal and Senator Sanders.

[shanny]

29. So the principle is people should continue

to suffer because others suffered before them?

p.s. Ask our candidate how she feels about that

[Bhkylib]

14. I prefer people doing something in exchange for the payoff

Volunteer work, public service, or something. I don't think it's a good idea to just give everyone a big fat check to pay off loans. There should be something that we give in return. By the way, I still have student loans.

[sop]

21. I agree. Some type of public service in lieu of loan repayment would not only relieve students

of burdensome debt, but it would benefit the country and the young people involved in community service.

[Blue_true]

22. Or cancel it for some people that MADE a choice to serve the public while paying off their debt.

Teachers in public schools in underserved areas. Doctors and nurses that work in hospitals that serve mostly or a lot of underprivileged patients. Tough plan to execute, but worth the effort.

Moving forward with current or future students, have a contract with some of them, free college in exchange for spending the first 5-10 years serving underserved populations, with pay that is online with what they would get if they had worked elsewhere. I think such a program would say loud and clear that public service and helping the poor is important to all of society.

[HerbChestnut]

24. Believe it or not, those types of programs already exist.

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service

[emmaverybo]

31. And are not functioning. Something like 98% of eligible. Applicants are turned down. These are

folks who have to pay, on time, for ten years usually to be eligible.

[HerbChestnut]

33. Exactly, it's totally broken.

It's just easier, and more sensible economically, to cancel student loan debt the way Bernie and Warren (to a lesser degree) wants to do.

[emmaverybo]

37. Warren would cancel 95% is the difference. Hers is income-driven so that if you have a huge

income, you do pay. Me, I’d be very satisfied to see the interest lowered on my outstanding student debt.

[CentralMass]

16. K&R

[betsuni]

19. Warren: $640 billion student debt forgiveness (eight minute abs).

Now Sanders comes out with a plan: $1.6 trillion debt forgiveness (seven minute abs).

[Cha]

32. While Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign has been in the middle of the pack in raising..

money and in polling, she has set the pace on policy.

04/22/2019

Warren proposes $640 billion student debt cancellation

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/22/elizabeth-warren-student-loan-debt-1284286

That was then.. this is now.. she beat BS on this plan by a couple of months.

Mahalo, betsuni!

[betsuni]

39. Trying to out-progressive the candidate with workable solutions won't work!

[Cha]

45. No, indeed, it will not.

[Cha]

46. This piece hits on a key difference: Warren is shaping her policy to target assistance to those who

Link to tweet

[betsuni]

48. It's not even seven minute abs. It's six.

[Hoyt]

20. There are funding sources for this, but not sure if we can fund everything we want like

healthcare, bolstering social security and Medicare, jobs, child care, education, infrastructure, job retraining, bolstering safety net, guaranteed income for those displaced, deficit and debt reduction, climate change, etc.

I’m all for slashing military budget (and sucking up hit to economy and jobs), reversing tax cuts over say past 20 years, increasing taxes substantially. But that won’t fund all we want.

Regarding student debt, definitely need to stop future debt. Past debt is tougher to deal with, but I’m all for options that are within the other issues we have to address.

[emmaverybo]

34. I am very skeptical that these wish lists can begin to be fulfilled even with a Dem senate. Another

consideration aside from funding and political will is just how much time, effort, and political capital
an administration must expend when concentrating on implementing a few big programs.

The ACA for instance was pretty much ready-made, had been tested, was not revolutionary in
impacting the current infrastructure and yet took immense effort.

Social security is not even secure, financially. If we can pass comprehensive immigration reform and do the right thing by asylum seekers, we have bills to pay there. If we do the right thing and share the refugee situation even in a smaller measure with Europe, more bills. Medicare as it stands is not full coverage. Community colleges that charge tuition are suffering cut-backs.

So many programs in health and human services currently labor under shortages.

What future emergencies, even a war we must engage in, can come up.

Don’t get me started on the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, urban decay, crumbling infrastructure...

[Hoyt]

43. Agree. Rather than unfulfilled promises, I wish some candidate would tell truth, prioritize needs,

explain what it will take to get there, etc.

I’m sure that would be political suicide, but all these promises are getting old, without a plan to get there. I think a lot of people know it too.

[emmaverybo]

44. Prioritize. That's it exactly. NT

[marylandblue]

62. Warren's approach is to have one big theme - wealth inequality.

She has an ambitious set of proposals to start off, like FDR's New Deal. FDR did not get everything he asked for, and not all of right away, but he got a lot of things, so he's looked at as a huge success.

[JoeOtterbein]

23. Please, pretty please, not just Bernie for a change...

... as we will rile up our base (yes, even some of us old white guys) while infaming the Trump/GOP repugs.

What could be more entertaining?

Now. What Will Joe Do?

[NYMinute]

41. I don't think Joe specializes in tricks and demagoguery nt

[comradebillyboy]

25. Yet another empty gesture...

[HerbChestnut]

30. How so?

Because the legislation won't pass tomorrow? Of course it won't, not with a Republican controlled senate and Trump in the White House. The point is to introduce the legislation so everyone can see what it is, then campaign on it. Many politicians do this during their campaigns. Elizabeth Warren did it a few weeks ago, and I'm pretty sure Cory Booker did it with one of his bills too.

[NYMinute]

42. So you agree it is just a stunt for elections and not serious?

[HerbChestnut]

64. That's the cynical way of putting it

But things like this happen every election cycle. Politicians "introduce legislation" whether they think it will pass or not as a way to bring attention to an issue they're campaigning on. In this case, it gives everyone a chance to dig into the details of the plan, something I thought many people here were clamoring for.

[NYMinute]

40. lol .. just in time for the election season

Why didn't he propose it in 2017 or 2018? Or before that? He has been in congress for 30 years - never did he bring this up until now.

Was he holding it off for the elections?

I take everything BS says with a grain of salt.

[Nanjeanne]

58. He did. You can read the full bill here. It was in 2015.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-114s1373is/pdf/BILLS-114s1373is.pdf

[TexasTowelie]

51. I would rather see UBI than a student loan payoff.

Some of us managed to complete a college degree without incurring any student loan debt through scholarships and working while in college. The last thing that I need is for universities to churn out even more graduates that I will have to compete against for the limited number of jobs that require a college degree, particularly when I'm at an age such that it is difficult to be hired anyways.

[neeksgeek]

56. A much more modest idea would be..,

To reverse the bankruptcy laws and allow student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. There are already means tests to prevent people with large incomes from abusing the system. Senator Durbin had this on his agenda a few years ago, but it went nowhere.

[BeckyDem]

59. Good.

[ucrdem]

60. Yeah that's going to happen.

[Uncle Joe]

61. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread brooklynite.

[KitSileya]

71. Giving $1.6 trillion to mainly white college educated Americans OK

Giving reparations to African Americans? Can't be done, apparently.

Doesn't matter that cancelling student debt is a huge give-away to the white middle classes, while African Americans have been disproportionally kept out of the college dream because of school segregation (there are fucking counties in this country that shut down their school system rather than integrate within living memory - how many of you reading this post went to school in the 1960's or before?), redlining, the school-to-prison pipeline and other forms of discrimination.

The hypocrisy disgusts me, and I say that as a white middle-aged woman still paying off student loans.

[still_one]

77. Why should someone who took a loan, with an agreement to pay it back, not be required to pay it back

Last edited Mon Jun 24, 2019, 12:35 PM - Edit history (1)

I can understand restructuring the loan at little or no interest rates, and allowing the option for someone to default on the loan through bankruptcy, which was not allowed under the bankruptcy bill, but I question the wisdom of not making people responsible for money they borrowed

[George II]

81. That's the way I see it. Regardless of the magnitude, students entered into an agreement....

.....to borrow so they could attend college.

What makes this any different from getting a mortgage to buy a house or even a car loan to buy a car?

To be honest, I've stayed out of these discussions for the most part because I was lucky enough ("smart enough"?) to receive a full academic scholarship to a private school and had no tuition debt when I graduated. It was a different era back then. But I did leave college with some debt that took close to ten years to pay it off. And that's what I did, paid it off.

BTW, tuition-free state and public college is not revolutionary. Back when I was in college there was no tuition to attend State of New York University (SUNY) and City of New York University (SUNY) Had I not gotten that scholarship I would have gone to City College.

[still_one]

87. You are just showing off how smart you are George, and we agree

[Freethinker65]

83. +1000

[honest.abe]

84. Yes and also what about those who sacrificed to pay off their debt.

Are they just stupid for not living it up? What kind of message does this send to future students? Why pay it off if eventually the loan will be forgiven.

[still_one]

88. My daughter was one of those people

[Nanjeanne]

80. It was great to see Rep Jaypal, Rep Omar, AOC and Randy Weingarten speaking with Sanders in support

of this bill!

And this statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works is great too.

“The vision of Social Security — the comprehensive economic security that President Franklin Roosevelt and his closest advisers recognized that all of us need — includes and rests on a guaranteed quality education. In the 21st-century, with its technological advances, today’s work often requires more than a high school diploma. Free college should be a right for everyone in America, just as free K-12 education is. As part of that comprehensive Social Security, those who find themselves caught in the web of indebtedness for the “crime” of seeking a higher education should have those debts cancelled.

Kudos to Representatives Omar and Jayapal, and to Senator Sanders for their legislation, which will increase the economic security of not just those who directly benefit, but the economic security of all of us.”

https://socialsecurityworks.org/2019/06/24/lawmakers-who-champion-free-college-debt-cancellation-are-carrying-on-fdrs-legacy/

[Freethinker65]

82. Nope. These were loans. Reduce the interest rate and I am ok with it

Tuition free for public in state colleges? Ok, perhaps.

Look. Anecdotal, but lots of liberal families I know scrimped and sacrificed to pay, or help pay, for their kid's college just so that they would not have huge debt upon graduation.

Also lots of kids chose the college they did because of cost. If they knew ahead of time there would be no debt, many would have gone to other better matched for their major schools. I know Honors Scholars that went to state schools just to save money instead of more selective schools offering less financial assistance for their majors that they would have excelled at.

[bluewater]

85. K&R

[Johnny2X2X]

86. Bernie gets it

This should be part of the party platform this cycle.

Fall back position would be subsidizing all outstanding student loans so they would have 0% interest in fees, you pay back what you borrowed, not a penny more. If you borrowed $25,000, that's what you pay back. If you borrowed $50k and have paid it down to $20,000, your payments that have been made are calculated only against the principle, so at that stage you might owe nothing.

[SouthernProgressive]

91. After a long career as a politician...

Seems he now has a plan for things.

[PassingFair]

92. I would be ecstatic if we could just eliminate and refund...

The interest on these loans.

[brooklynite]

102. Perhaps he can pay for this with the money he won't spend...

...when he doesn't covert the Country to Medicare for All?