Trump Executive Order Cancels Student Loan Debt for Disabled Veterans
“Veterans … who have made such enormous sacrifices for our country should not be asked to pay any more”
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are pushing the idea of student loan debt cancellation for everyone. Trump has now delivered on this issue for one specific and deserving group. Disabled veterans.
Andrew O’Reilly reports at FOX News:
Trump signs executive order cancelling student loan debt for disabled veterans
President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that forgives all student loan debt for any permanently disabled U.S. military veterans.
The order, which Trump signed following a speech at the American Veterans National Convention in Louisville, Ky., also clears those eligible veterans from having to pay any federal income tax on the loans. Trump added that he is pressuring individual states to follow suit.
“The debt of these disabled veterans will be completely erased,” Trump said. “That’s hundreds of millions of dollars of student loans debt for our disabled veterans that will be completely erased.”
The memo Trump signed directs the government to develop an “expedited” process so veterans can have their federal student loan debt discharged “with minimal burdens.” Currently, just half of the roughly 50,000 disabled veterans who are qualified to have their federal student loan debt forgiven have received the benefit because of a burdensome application process.
Trump tweeted about this, be sure to watch the video:
It was my honor to sign a Presidential Memorandum facilitating the cancellation of student loan debt for 25K of our most severely disabled Veterans. With today’s order, we express the everlasting love & loyalty of a truly grateful Nation. God bless our Vets, & God Bless America! pic.twitter.com/MMMsX3RDQM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2019
Brett Samuels of The Hill has more:
President Trump on Wednesday signed a memorandum directing the Department of Education to eliminate all federal student loan debt owed by tens of thousands of severely disabled veterans.
Trump signed the directive following a speech to AMVETS at the organization’s 75th annual convention in Kentucky. The announcement drew applause from those in attendance, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
“Nobody can complain about that, right?” Trump said. “The debt of these disabled veterans will be entirely erased. It will be gone. They can sleep well tonight.”…
“Veterans … who have made such enormous sacrifices for our country should not be asked to pay any more,” he said.
Here’s a short video report from WEHT News:
This is one form of free college everyone can get behind. People who risk their lives defending the nation should move to the front of the line.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Smart move…takes the issue off the table politically. Forces the progs to argue that Billy and Sally who diddled their way to a useless basketweaving degree while smoking dope and playing videogames deserve the same help as disabled heroes.
Takes it off the table?
I wish but the “progressive” types (idiots) will still find something to be offended about. Maybe those disabled veterans tend to be more likely male, white, not immigrant, Christian, heterosexual, etc.
See how easy it is for them?
as much as I agree with you, the progressives will still make it an issue, the argument will go something like, ‘well you did for the vets why not everyone else’
The dems will not DO anything. They want problems to exist permanently so they can blame them on Trump or whomever. Think Baltimore. Think Public Schools. Is not the British Government Health Care a problem complained about in every election and never solved? Obamacare or its single payer replacement was to play that role.
Obama took over student loans so the dems could blame and promise. Trump just screwed that up for the dems.
This is a brilliant move by Trump in my opinion.
Veterans deserve this, others generally do not.
I don’t like picking special groups to forgive debt, but this is the best choice one could make for doing so for several reasons:
1. It’s small
2. It’s deserving
3. It’s not a liberal faction with their collective hands out pushing some grievance.
So, this will necessitate a new bureaucracy to determine who is disabled and who is not. And soon other constituencies will want the same accommodations. After all, what’s $750 million among friends?
We already have that bureaucracy. It also controls the VA “Benefits” the vets are subjected to after leaving service. It’s a pre-existing determination that can be reused.
The type of discharge determines what their status is for example, Medical Discharge at 20% or Full(100%) Medical Discharge.
Crippling war wounds are pretty bloody obvious. (No pun intended.) And the DoD has their service records. No need to regather information they already have.
Won’t require anything new. The program already exists. Trump’s executive order just says “make it happen faster.”
So what’s the extent of disabled? Pretty much everyone leaving the military gets some level of “disabled”
You and I think people missing arms and legs.
Reality- disabled means “wakes up to pee at night” I’ve seen guys with almost no real problems stack up 3-4 of these conditions and have a pretty sweet retirement.
I am a vet, yet I can’t get on board with every handout that comes our way. Sure, we think we deserve it….but doesn’t every group think they deserve it? When I look at the deficit and the fed debt, this is why it keeps getting worse and worse. Spending is out of control, and it’s happening little bits at a time….it’s death by a thousand spends.
It doesn’t mean I am against everything….but I would like to know how much is enough….and that’s a question for all groups. What if it were forgiveness for all student debt beyond what GI Bill didn’t pay for….for every vet….would that be too much? Same goes for tax cuts, food stamps, farm subsidies, all of it. How much is too much?
Obama and the Dems spent money like drunken sailors and drunken Marines, but Trump and the Repubs are just as bad if not worse! Just because they hook up people that I agree with doesn’t make it right on principle!!!!!!
Democrats = EVERYONE deserves cake.
Trump = Fantsstic idea…signs EO giving cake to veterans (ie people who have done something for their country).
Dumb question here – if you can do this by memo for vets does that mean a Dem president could do the same for every single debtor?
(Asking for a friend @ an already worried taxpayer friend who wants to know how much more worried he/she should be.)
Re-reading the article, I spotted this:
It sounds as though there is already a program in place which forgives this debt for disabled vets, but a lot of people who qualify don’t apply.
My Daughter, a disabled veteran, went to Law School on the GI Bill. She was accepted to the University of North Carolina, Wake Forest and Florida State. UNC would take the GI Bill and then bill her $60K. Wake Forest would take the GI Bill and bill her $120K.
Florida State took the GI Bill as paid in full. She did not owe anything after graduation.
Don’t veterans already receive benefits under the GI bill?
it could be the guard/reserves that were called up, also the GI bill usually doesn’t take effect until you leave the service
Terrible pandering BS.
I’m a veteran. This is BAD.
If Trump can do it for one special group of people, a Democrat can do it to pander to whatever identity group they’re currently trying to buy votes from.
This is going to cause student loan debt to skyrocket more than it already has.
It’s a LOAN. It’s not a ‘gift’. YOU PAY IT BACK.
1. according to the article they were already eligible, this just makes the application process easier, and
2. the Dems are promising to cancel it anyway, at least for their favorite constituencies and might leave out any help for disabled veterans if, say, they’re white. This preempts that.
Antifa is pretty much fighting Nazis in Portland. When they get friendly f#%ked by their buddy’s Molotov cocktail, can they get the debt from their queer feminism BA degree erased?
As a combat disabled veteran I am trying to wrap my head around this. I suppose that the population is mostly reserve and NG who were injured on ‘active service’, there are likely a smaller percentage probably 15-25% of only AD vets. Either way when DoD breaks you they have to pay you. So they all have gone through the VA claims process to receive their rating.
If you have not personally experienced VA examination and claims submission process I will sum it up in three words; adversarial, Byzantine and lengthy. I simply state this to show that these folks have been thoroughly screened. Generally speaking 30% disability rating is probably what the lower cut off is for many services.
VA math. Not simple addition. A single condition with a 40% rating = 40% disabled and 60% able. A second condition with a 40% rating means 40% of the remaining 60% = 24% rounded to nearest ten, so second condition is not 40% it is 20% in VA math. This first condition rating of 40% + second condition rating of 20% = 60% final disability rating with 40% able as the multiple for a third condition of any.
I suppose these particular population of disabled veterans falls somehow outside the post 9-11 GI Bill and other VA education programs or they wouldn’t have student loans to begin with.
This move by POTUS de-fangs the current student loan forgiveness movement IMO. A ‘ deserving’ group was targeted for relief. This makes it easier for the administration to resist calls for broader relief by using the PR advantage created by saying ‘what makes you worthy of debt relief on par with disabled veterans’.
I am still not sure I agree with this policy on it’s own merits, but smart political play by the administration.
I hadn’t noticed your response when I entered mine. Your answer was more detailed.
Gtl, no vets do not. They have to serve a minimum term in the mulitary and sign up during service to get the educational help. It is a loan, not free. The benefits WWII vets got automatically got changed significantly over the years since then.
Currently, just half of the roughly 50,000 disabled veterans who are qualified to have their federal student loan debt forgiven have received the benefit because of a burdensome application process.
IOW, no he did NOT simply, by executive order, forgive these debts. That system already exists. He simply told the VA to figure out how to make it happen faster.
Et tu, LI? You’re better than this.
(Trump, as President, would have no authority to forgive other people’s debts, absent some legislation. He certainly doesn’t have the authority to make that debt forgiveness tax-free.)
Good grief. I would have though you people of everyone would have actually read the document rather than just parrot the media. In fact your own article quotes the President as saying it’s a memo. He is asking SecED and SecVA to figure out a way to do this within the law. A memo is not an order. Read the actual document here.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-discharging-federal-student-loan-debt-totally-permanently-disabled-veterans