Just as I suspected, Biden is announcing that he will approve the cancellation of $10,000 in federal student loan debt.
I guess Biden is expecting some kind of returns on his efforts in the midterm elections, but I seem to recall his campaign promise to “Forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities and private Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) for debt holders earning up to $125,000.”
That’s directly from the Biden/Harris campaign website as confirmed by Politifact and their Biden Promise Tracker (which you should definitely check out by the way). It’s depressing.
But somehow since Biden/Harris won the White House, that promise has been whittled down to Biden agreeing with Sen Elizabeth Warren on forgiving just 10,000 in student loans. He tweeted his support for this idea on March 22, 2020, saying, “We should forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans, as proposed by Senator Warren and colleagues. Young people and other student debt holders bore the brunt of the last crisis. It shouldn’t happen again.” But that’s not what he promised when campaigned.
Publications like Money.com went so far as to say that Biden had only ever promised to knock $10,000 off of student loan debt for certain borrowers and cited several instances before and after the election when he mentioned that amount as proof that he never promised to actually cancel all student loan debt.
Except that on his campaign website, he absolutely did. He totally said Forgive ALL undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt and you can’t redefine what all means to claim Biden didn’t make that campaign promise like the administration tried to redefine what recession means to claim we’re not in one.
But as Republicans and Democrats are crying about canceling any student loan debt because that’s letting bad borrowers off the hook, the Biden administration isn’t having a problem sending more money to Ukraine, as he simultaneously announced another $3 billion will be sent in weapons and equipment. Even though CBS News aired a recent documentary in which the founder of pro-Ukraine nonprofit Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, said in late April that only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines in Ukraine. But CBS News buckled under political pressure to remove the offending portions of the documentary, publicly apologize for saying not nice things about the proxy war in Ukraine and update it with more favorable information.
The issue of the lack of tracking of the massive influx of weapons into the country is highlighted by the claims of illegal sales of some of the hardware on the dark web. And even though US officials have been scoffing at the idea that billions of dollars worth of weaponry is being sold on the black market, you know there’s no authority in Ukraine making sure everything delivered ends up where it’s supposed to be, especially since Ukraine is not winning the war anyway. Nonetheless, Biden is willing to throw another $3 billion away in Ukraine, with no oversight and into a losing effort, while he throws crumbs at crushing student loan debt in this country.
But let’s keep in mind that Joseph Biden is the guy who is responsible for student loan debt being the nearly inescapable debt trap it is today since it was his bill, the Higher Education Act of 1976, and his support of later legislation that even further restricted student loans from being eligible to be discharged in bankruptcy. Joe Biden created this student loan debt trap to favor the student loan companies, folks. He sure isn’t going to be the one to fix it.
But for Biden, Harris, the Democratic Party, and too many liberal voters my age and older this is paltry $10,000 student loan forgiveness is seen as a win, and they’ll claim it’s a big one, and they’ll further turn on the millennial and Gen Z voters who are rightfully confronting them with what was promised, as opposed to what is being delivered. They’ll tell those kids to shut up and be grateful that Biden did anything and keep paying the rest of those crushing student loans like we did (as we refuse to admit that college was significantly less expensive for us, the cost of living was much lower, so few people needed to go into massive debt to pay for college back then) by working two maybe three jobs, not buying Starbucks and not eating out every day for lunch, while this administration throws another $3 billion away in Ukraine.
And I hope those young, righteously and rightfully angry millennial and Gen Z voters and hopefully more of us Gen X-ers throw those votes in those duplicitous liberals’ faces come November 22 and again in 2024, because being browbeaten into voting for someone who was never a friend to the working class and poor to save a crumbling system from its own ineptitude and arrogance is one thing, but being gaslit by those same people into accepting what is quite literally a broken campaign promise as if it is a gift we should be grateful for a whole ‘nother insult altogether.