It also doesn’t cover certain student loans.

I have loans from the early 2000’s via Navient. Because the “loans” were structured differently in 2000 or whatever, none of the “plans” that will wipe away any of the rest of my debt apply to me. So, no matter what, I’m stuck paying the rest of it, because somehow “these loans are just different.”

It’s a load of fucking bollocks. I’m broke as shit and I don’t have money to be pissing away on these old loans that are 90% paid off. I would have technically had loan discharge from nearly all the things he’s done to discharge student loan debt, but SOMEHOW not a single one has applied to my loans, and everyone I have talked to tells me “Welp, too bad for you.”

This isn’t an action right before an elction. The 130 billion has been over the course of the admin. If not for the supreme court, total forgiveness would have been over 530 billion, or roughly 30% of that total. As is, its roughly 7%.

7% doesnt seem like much, but its about 7% more forgiven then any admin ever. No other admin comes even close to 1% of that total. Biden has forgiven at least 7x times as much student debt as Obama, and infinity more than any Republican.

Trump’s admin blocked forgiveness almost totally, only allows a few dozen people at all, and refusing to process other people that qualified. The previous president literally refused earned forgiveness under much more stringent rules, and now we have Biden going harder than any other president ever by leaps and bounds and youre mad about it.

This skips all the huge improvements in loan repayment too, including 0% interest if you make monthly payments, doubling the amount of income people need before payments go above $0/month from 15k to 32k, allowing delinquent borrows to true up scot free, on and on. They have done tons of positive things for student loans, but because it wasn’t everything, apprently it wasent enough for you.

You wanted $100 from previous admins and got $0. Biden tried to give you $30 before being blocked by political hacks, and has actually managed to give you $7 so far, but youre still pissed its not the whole $100. Okay then.

Crazy that earning north of $67k/year qualifies you as “high income”.

Should also be noted that an enormous part of that $138B is

Fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program so that borrowers who go into public service get the debt relief they’re entitled to under the law. Before President Biden took office, only 7,000 people ever received debt relief through PSLF. After fixing the program, the Biden-Harris Administration has now cancelled student loan debt for nearly 800,000 public service workers.

Cancelling student loan debt for more than 930,000 borrowers who have been in repayment for over 20 years but never got the relief they earned because of administrative failures with Income-Driven Repayment Plans.

Which was debt relief already provided for under prior administrations that the Trump admin simply ratfvcked during his term in office. This isn’t new money and it isn’t even “forgiveness” in a broad sense. These are loans that have already been paid back to their face value and are persisting entirely due to the high interest rates preventing lenders from hitting the principle.

Ya, repeal Citizens United and get the government representing the people, not the dollars.

Sure! So for starters, I’m going to guess our working definitions of inflation are a little different. Inflation, in the general sense, refers to an expansion. When you inflate a balloon, it is expanding because the supply of air increases. This expansion can cause a rise (if it’s helium), but the rise and the inflation are separate things. Likewise, if the supply of money increases, that would refer to an inflation or expansion of the currency, and the prices would rise in response, because greater supply of something makes it less valuable. They’re linked, for sure, but not the same conceptual thing.

I understand if you don’t want to accept that into your nomenclature but I do find it’s the more workable - and historically consistent, for that matter - definition of the word. Just as long as you understand how I use the word is all :)

So, to the loans. There’s a few ways to get a loan, let’s say you sign a deal with Sallie Mae. To keep it simple, let’s say they have $100,000 to give, so that’s the loan you get. Under normal circumstances, you would get your education, and then sometime later pay it back by your own means, after interest has accumulated. So, let’s say you pay $180,000 back in total, so $80,000 in interest. Technically, you paid $80,000 for SLM to pay $100,000 on your behalf, and you got you education in the process. SLM makes a big profit, you get educated for cheaper, and the school still gets their tuition fees. This benefits the shareholders of SLM who then have more revenue to participate more in the economy.

These numbers may seem idealistic to you, depending on where you’re from, who you sign with, etc… I’ll address that in a sec, but they’re not real numbers anyway haha. The important part to point out about this process is that the additional $80,000 comes from a private individual - meaning it most likely came from the supply of money that already exists amongst the general public (you worked for it). Same goes for the loaned money in this case, and as it’s payed off all that revenue is recirculated in the process

Now let’s say, for whatever reason, you don’t or can’t pay it off at all. So, you’re given $100,000 and ten years later they’re expecting $180,000 back. If the government decides on SLM’s behalf to forgive your loan, then it has effectively taken $180,000 of revenue away from the organization. Not only do I find this wrong personally (I don’t think the government should interfere with business like that), and that I’m pretty sure it would be massively illegal, but it would also certainly put that organization out of business if it’s done at scale, which means that service disappears for everyone else. But, like I said, I’m certain this isn’t how they’d do it, and that’s probably why.

What has to happen is for the government to pay it off themselves. Given that America’s national debt is still trending up (last i checked anyway), I would say it does not have the spare funds to pay off student’s loans. The way America solves that problem these days is the federal reserve generates more money, which means that forgiving $180,000 in debt will directly inflate the currency by $180,000. That’s not a lot by itself, but I think Biden’s forgiving billions of dollars altogether, which means the supply of American dollars will inflate by billions, which will greatly decrease its value. This, of course, means that the students whose loans were just forgiven will have way less buying power.

This basically means that the entire working class, including those who had their loans forgiven, will have way less buying power, struggle to build savings, and have less means to move themselves up economically. Having such a large portion of the consumer market struggling to get by will hurt businesses, more loans given, more loans forgiven… The only potential winner is a nefarious government who just gained greater control over its population. The reason I say nefarious is because a non-nefarious government would see no advantage here.

TL;DR: forgiving billions of dollars inflates the currency by billions of dollars which totally fucks over the people it was trying to help.

As for what the government can do, is perhaps institute laws that reduce or cap interest on student loans, but I think that already exists (it does where I live anyway). That would help out those who’ve been exploited by high interest student loans (or prevent it).

But, the best way to solve the student loan crises is a massive cultural shift in how we approach education. I don’t think art school should be worth as much as it costs, but people are willing to pay for it so it’ll never change. I think a lot of people go to school out of a sort of obligation, or an assumption that it’ll lead somewhere good, without considering what a massive investment it is. People don’t really see it as an investment, but it is. If you’re thinking about going to school, you have to be able to judge whether or not it’ll be worth it, just like every other big risky investment. If you’re gonna pay that much to go to school, you better have the money and really want to go to school or expect to make returns on the investment.

The NEXT best way to solve it is to have a strong enough economy that those who do get fucked over (generally, not just by loans) or make mistakes can easily recover and make up for it if they try to. That’s the only factor the government is actually responsible for, and I would say forgiving loans actively works against it. So, as far as the government is concerned, it should be in its best interest to never forgive loans.

I’m sorry, I know this is a long comment, but there plenty of historical example of good and bad debt relief efforts. We have so much to learn from!

• Julius Caesar instituted reforms that reduced interest owed on outstanding debts. He also personally provided relief in extreme cases. Yet, when debt cancellation came up in the senate, he strongly opposed the method. So much so, that he personally took out such a massive loan the he became the most indebted man in Rome, and thus the primary benefactor for such a bill that was meant to help the common folk. Suddenly it wasn’t such a popular idea anymore lol. Since he did so much to help Rome economically, I think I’ll trust his judgement on that one.

• Okay not exactly a debt forgiveness example but it’s worth mentioning that the emperor Aurelian literally SOLVED inflation by physically stopping all currency printing operations within reach of the political power base. One of the only times in history that’s been achieved.

• Diocletian’s reign began less than ten years later and was incredibly heavy handed in his economic reforms, including debt cancellation efforts, and also happened to rule over one of the greatest inflationary periods in history. Just ten years later. Granted, that was way more than just the debt cancellation.

• King Henry III was fiscally irresponsible and reigned over a time of economic hardship. Many of his Baron’s were indebted to Jewish money-lenders, so he just issue the Statute of Jewry and cancelled a ton of debt at the expensive at the cost of economic hardship for the Jewish community.

I could go on but I don’t feel like typing this comment anymore lol