U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce on Wednesday that his administration has approved an additional $9 billion in student debt relief for 125,000 borrowers, the White House said.

Biden has said he will pursue new measures to provide student loan relief to Americans after the Supreme Court blocked his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.

The president’s announcement, planned for 1 p.m. EDT at the White House, will bring the total approved debt cancellation by the Biden administration to $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million Americans, the White House said.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        How about just anyone under the age of 60

        Between 40 and 50 would be ideal.

        • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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          I actually think 50-60 would be ideal. Obama, in his mid-40s, was a relative political newcomer in 2008 (compared to other candidates, at least, not like Trump-style) and he made many missteps as a result. The ACA, for example, could have been far more broad. They didn’t need massive moderate support.

          Of course, some people enter politics pretty young. By the time Maxwell Frost hits 45, for example, he might have 20 years in federal politics. It’s rare that we find people with so much experience at that age though.

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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            I think the level of Republican stonewalling was historic for Obama, so to some degree it would’ve happened anyway, but I think he would’ve wisened up faster if he had more experience. It’s a double edged sword.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            The ACA, for example, could have been far more broad. They didn’t need massive moderate support.

            The ACA passed by one vote after they stripped it down to make it more appealing.

            On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill: a cloture vote to end the filibuster.[182] The bill then passed, also 60–39, on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two independents voting for it, and all Republicans against (except Jim Bunning, who did not vote).[

          • thallamabond@lemmy.world
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            The aca was much more broad, it initially included a single player option, but that was excluded by Joe Lieberman.

            He threatened to kill the whole thing if single payer was included.

            Lieberman then quit the Democratic party and now he’s founding chairman of No Labels

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          In 2000 Putin was between 40 and 50. Depends on what is ideal for you. Between 18 and 30 would be ideal.

          • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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            I don’t think an 18 year old president is a good idea. Bold of me to say, I know.

            Also, I don’t think Putin’s age was the problem when he took office the first time… it was that he is Putin.

        • Wrench@lemmy.world
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          Yes, we need someone even older to stave off the most common complaint about Biden running for reelection

          • jadegear@lemm.ee
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            Is the complaint legitimate? Especially hard to make the case for Sanders considering how much of a firebrand he is. Not going to get Sleepy Joe memes out of that.

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          We need the house and the senate with a comfortable majority. Sanders as president without those critical conditions being met would make little difference.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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          we need bernard sanders brain inside a younger person. Matt Gaetz isn’t using his? maybe some kind of transplant or brain swap device is in order.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            You aren’t actually serious right?

            Cornell has bumbled his micro campaign into irrelevance within weeks of it starting. He’s shown no political savvy. He has run for and won no prior office. He’d be a disaster.

            Fetterman, or literally any progressive who has won a federal election is a better option.

            • NotBillMurray@lemmy.world
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              Dude, if Fetterman ran I’d vote for him in an instant. Doubly so if he took the oath of office in shorts and a hoodie

              • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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                You shouldn’t, He just entered federal Politics. He needs experience and more importantly he needs to be stabilize his Health before he would even dream of going to the next level.

                • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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                  He just won his election against a TV host bullshit artist.

                  He’s playing the game excellently. He’d be a great candidate.

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              I’m voting for cornel west because I like what he says, not what people say about him. but the people talking shit on him cement my belief he’s the right guy.

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              Not true at all, still polling at 5% and will get at least that in the general.

              Not surprised someone who thinks a walking corpse like Fetterman is a better option would be so ignorant.

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                Damn man, he didn’t say you were stupid, he just said he disagreed with you. Don’t need to sling mud for a different opinion.

                • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
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                  He did insult someone who has likely accomplished 1000x more with his life, Dr. West. So no, I’m not the one slinging mud here.

              • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                thinks a walking corpse like Fetterman

                Folks, I give to you the anti reality views of the Green Party in real time!

                • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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                  People who say this are so fuckin bougie. Poor people can’t afford to throw away their votes, but middle class people fuck over the poor by doing so all the time.

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        There always has been but people are afraid to vote 3rd party because of the oligarchy’s brainwashing

        • player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          It’s not brainwashing when the voting system is specifically set up to give an advantage to the dominant parties and to suppress every minority party. There are valid reasons to be skeptical that a 3rd party could ever win without a reformed voting system.

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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            They also can’t win if everybody says “don’t vote for them because they can’t win” so I will carry on voting for them and spreading the word that we all should.

            • plutus@lemm.ee
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              You’d be a lot better off voting for majority party candidates that want to enact ranked-choice voting.

              Until that happens, unfortunately the reality is that third parties are going to remain on the margins in the US.

                • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                  And it’s always settled to two major parties, in spite of that. The fact that we’ve had several parties over the country’s history but it almost always comes down to two major parties should tell you something.

                  Fortunately, there may be an opening soon, with Republicans in disarray.

            • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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              They can’t win because they don’t even play the game correctly. You can’t just get up and give grand speeches about radically different ideas, with little to no strategy or evidence to back it up and expect to jump into literally the most powerful job in the world. It’s utter nonsense. Unless you’re a Billionaire that wants to buy your way in.

              • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                You can tell none of the third parties are serious because all their attention goes to the presidency.

                They have no consideration for what would happen if they actually won. No representatives in the House, no senators, no state governors even. They’d be lame ducks the instant they were sworn in.

                They should be targeting Congressional seats and state governorships. Instead, they’re just grifting money.

                • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  They’d be lame ducks the instant they were sworn in.

                  Congress spent the last century concentrating power in the executive. I think you’d be surprised what a motivated individual could accomplish.

        • BoofStroke@lemm.ee
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          It’s not fear. Third parties simply do not work with our system. If you want third parties to succeed, then we need to

          • Get rid of the electoral college
          • Ranked Choice Voting everywhere
        • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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          It’s not that simple. Several factors come into play.

          The biggest systemic issues are the first past the post voting system and the electoral college (for president).

          People who have even a simplistic understanding of how the system works and the track record for third parties know the odds are low. Those who are pragmatic will vote for Dem or Rep. In the current polarized political climate people are less likely to take a chance with a third party vote.

          Also, the press mostly ignores candidates of other parties. So they aren’t as well known and thus can’t get popular enough to get traction.

          If you really want more parties to have a chance, push for alternate voting systems like ranked choice, cumulative, etc.

          This chart from fairvote.org compares a number of different systems based on their research.

        • nocturne213@lemm.ee
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          In 2016 I voted for Gary Johnson because I thought there was really no way anyone would vote for the other two.

          • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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            Gary Johnson is a fool who didn’t even act like he was seriously running for President. It looked like he drew the short straw.

              • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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                I have no idea what elements of libertarianism you like, nor why a ex-Republican for that roll in your mind, but he would have been a bad Republican, but not Trump. He had no chance so it really didn’t matter

        • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
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          Amen. Proud to support Dr. Cornel West and the Green party in 2024!

          These people are really brainwashed, either that or it’s DNC bots downvoting you

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      I was approved for relief but thanks to fucking Supreme Court and weak as Biden I am forced to pay student loans. Fuck him. He should of canceled all the debt.

  • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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    $9 billion for 125k borrowers is $72000 per borrower

    Would be nice if they would vanish the 40k in loans I have that I’ve been paying on since the Obama years. I’ve paid in far beyond the total amount I ever borrowed, while the compound interest just added it all back over the years. Progress has been very slow for me to pay that off, started payments with about 50k loans, after being ballooned up from the original principal from several years of economic hardship forbearance where the interest still gets capitalized.

    • mpa92643@lemmy.world
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      You should look into the Income Driven Repayment plan: https://studentaid.gov/idr/

      It’s one of the new major programs from the Department of Education and can help a lot with reducing repayments while eventually being eligible for full forgiveness.

      • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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        I filled out the application and both the payment and interest doubled for me, not sure where is the benefit here. Hell, maybe I lucked out with my 30 year loan

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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        That’s nice for those who it can help, but I don’t really need help making the payments. I’m just fed up with having to pay them at all since I’ve already paid back much more than I ever borrowed.

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          Biden’s new SAVE plan is set up so that any interest not covered by your IDR payment is not capitalized. It would probably also be worth your while to look into the forgiveness plans and terms because you might be able to reduce how much you owe based on previous payments.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      Just cap the interest rate

      at zero. If the loan is risk free it shouldn’t be profitable, to do anything else is to funnel public money into the banks.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        At 0% interest, no bank would offer loans, because it would literally just be them losing money managing loans they make nothing from.

        • jadegear@lemm.ee
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          Zero percent and govt covers operating costs with a stipend per loan. Granted figuring out the rate to pay would be a task, and keeping that from being a gouge itself… but better than passing it along to borrowers.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            Yeah if you give them a way to turn some sort of profit I think this idea could have some legs. Even something small like OP costs plus a flat thousand or so per loan processed could still keep the game running.

            Loan values would still keep going up, but the price would be much more understandable to those taking them out.

            • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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              IMHO, college tuition and student loans should be handled the way that the healthcare marketplace of the ACA should’ve been handled: less carrot, more stick.

              To the banks/insurance companies:

              “If you want to continue to do business with the American public, you must offer competitively priced insurance packages/low or zero interest loans for education on a government run portal. If you don’t serve the public in this way, you’ll be prohibited from accessing the American people as a market for your for-profit business.”

              Honestly, the American Consumer Is the greatest driver of global economic growth and domestic economic stability in the world, and the American government’s single most valuable economic asset. That the government chooses, through its policy decisions to exploit and abuse this asset rather than protect it, grow it, and prosper alongside it speaks to who’s really calling the shots.

              Sure, it would piss off the hard-line “free market” advocates, but small businesses pay taxes at a level that impacts their profitability in a way that larger corporations simply don’t. I feel it’s more than fair to level that playing field by some small degree by locking access to the American consumer behind the condition of having to contribute to the betterment of that market.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      That requires legislation and we do not currently have a House that can even consider legislation

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      Biden had a really good plan. Zero interest as long as you pay at least something, and the payment being as low as $1 with a sliding scale based on income.

      It’s more fair than just forgiveness to people without loans since the debt isn’t eliminated. I’m personally fine with eliminating the debt to have a more educated society, but a lot of people aren’t, and that’s a good middle ground.

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    According to a White House fact sheet, the new measures include:

    • $5.2 billion in additional debt relief for 53,000 borrowers under Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs
    • nearly $2.8 billion in new debt relief for nearly 51,000 borrowers through fixes to “income-driven repayment,” which the White House says are borrowers who made 20 years or more of payments “but never got the relief they were entitled to.”
    • And $1.2 billion for nearly 22,000 borrowers who have a disability who have been identified and approved for discharge through a data match with the Social Security Administration.
    • uis@lemmy.world
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      At least not bailing out some huge corpos that short-term themselves to bankruptcy.

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      That’s not his job, that’s congress’s job. He can propose a bill, but wtf is the point when the house doesn’t even have a speaker and the current majority hasn’t brought a single bill to the floor for a vote.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      Fight to put a solid majority of Dems in Congress, and you’ll get that. President can’t constitutionally do that.

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      I got fined by the city for violating the ordinance against having my trash bin sitting in the street. THANKS SLEEPY JOE!

      —You

      In case you weren’t aware, the President isn’t allowed to draft and ratify his own legislation.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        Choo choo!!! It’s a gravy train! Cuz gravy will be the most fancy thing you’ll ever be able to afford again.

        • Sharkwellington@lemmy.one
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          We are talking about a living wage. As in, working a job gives you enough money to survive. Are things really that fucked up that people making enough to live off of would wreck the economy? Let it burn, then.

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            I think the person I replied to edited their comment. I could have sworn they said something about a train. Good God my reply makes me look like a monster…

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    The standard debt relief stuff that every administration does as it is required by law, but doesn’t bluster about. For example, one cannot just choose to not pay public service benefits as that is part of the deal those workers signed up for.

    • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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      No, the Trump administration repeatedly blocked loan forgiveness that was already in law. Betsy Devos had to be brought to court multiple times and sometimes ignored court orders to pay for years. I wouldn’t trust a republican administration to even live up to the bare minimum of what’s required by law.

      In addition to not fighting loan forgiveness laws already existing, the Biden administration has also broadened existing forgiveness rules to apply to more people people. They’re also crafting a new rule to again try to do what the supreme court blocked in broader forgiveness under a different law that also grants the executive branch power to modify loans to try and get around the ruling.