Joe Biden Caves to the Squad and Extends Pause on Student Loan Payments
“we know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments”
In August, Biden extended the pause on federal student loan payments through February of 2022. Last week he announced that there would be no more extensions, and those loan payments would restart in February.
People on the left, most notable members of the Squad, complained loudly and now Biden has caved to their demands.
He just kicked the can down the road to May 1st.
Kathryn Watson reports at CBS News:
Biden extends pause on student loan repayments through May 1
President Joe Biden has extended a pause on student loan repayments an additional 90 days through May 1, 2022, the White House announced Wednesday.
Those with student loans had been scheduled to begin repayments on February 1. Although unemployment is relatively low, the president said, many are still struggling with the economic fallout from the pandemic.
“Now, while our jobs recovery is one of the strongest ever — with nearly 6 million jobs added this year, the fewest Americans filing for unemployment in more than 50 years, and overall unemployment at 4.2 percent — we know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments,” Mr. Biden said in his statement announcing the extension.
The pause on payments has affected 41 million Americans, according to the White House.
Today, I announced my Administration is extending the pause on federal student loan repayments for an additional 90 days. pic.twitter.com/mxveCTe7bH
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 22, 2021
When it comes to this issue, the Squad has Biden on a leash. They wanted their way and they got it.
Let’s stop advancing this narrative that student loan debt is for the privileged.
Do we really think a billionaire’s child is taking out student loans?
First-generation college students are twice as likely to report they are behind in making student loan payments. pic.twitter.com/KyGnrJCjNq
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) December 3, 2021
Rep. @RashidaTlaib: "I worked full time, Monday through Friday, and took weekend classes to get my law degree. And still, close to $200,000 in debt. And I still owe over $70,000 and most of it was interest." pic.twitter.com/STGxo70JlS
— The Hill (@thehill) December 5, 2021
President Biden can cancel student debt with the stroke of a pen.
It’s that simple.
He should use his authority and provide millions with desperately needed relief.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 16, 2021
This is welcome news and would absolutely be the right call.
Extending the pause will help millions of borrowers and their families weather this ongoing pandemic.@POTUS must extend this critical lifeline & #CancelStudentDebt with the stroke of a pen. https://t.co/K5TFvcSzOu
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) December 21, 2021
You know what doesn't need 50 votes in the Senate? Canceling at least $50,000 of student debt per borrower.
All it takes is a signature.
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) December 22, 2021
These weren’t the only people pushing for this. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and other Democrats joined the chorus, but the Squad was leading the charge.
They will spend nearly every waking moment between now and May 1st campaigning to make this change permanent and for Biden to cancel all student debt. Biden has given them an additional six months to convince him to do it.
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Comments
Why would we suspend loan repayment in this booming economy?
Bread & circuses.
Indeed. According to the Joseph Goebbels media, aren’t we allegedly already enjoying the “Biden* Boom”, the Greatest Economy in the History of the Universe (TM)?
Freebies. The left just loves buying votes with other people’s money. It is the foundation of socialism.
Infighting. A good sign.
When I see the word “Squad,” the visual image is “squat.”
Women on breeding, poise, and beauty have that effect on men.
What happened with Joe?
of…
What happened with Joe? He caved—like a paper sack filled with air and stepped on by his overlords. He is nothing more than a useful idiot. Draw a picture on one side of the bag and say it’s the president. Put your hand in and wiggle it around and say it’s talking.
WHEN YOU STAND FOR NOTHING – YOU FALL FOR ANYTHING
Biden’s caving on student loans was predictable. It is impossible for him to stand up to the radical progressive left. He is not a leader – just a useful idiot for the Marxists.
Given that he isn’t really functioning beyond the level of a somewhat bright child, I doubt this was his decision.
I see Frau Doktor Jill in back of this.
I like your new screen name.
You look like a Viking, but are you friendly?
What’s not to vike?
Yes. I dazzle people with my Viking ask good looks, but I still retain my grizzly bear charm.
Viking-esque….
Ha ha.
Joe Biden: no enemies to the left, no friends to the right and no idea where he is standing.
Jefferson Davis was a better president…
There is So much potential for the Law of (un)intended consequences here. Suppose Biden does cave and cancel student debt? What will that do to Banking industry profits and how will they choose to “recover” from the losses?
It won’t affect banking industry profits at all since the federal government federalized all student loans and the banks haven’t issued private student loans since Obama eliminated the federal guaranteed loan program, which let private lenders offer student loans at low interest rates.. So banks no longer issue low interest student loans and no longer have any skin in the issue.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/obama-created-student-loan-crisis-with-1-trillion-in-loans/And do you remember this debacle? When Maxine Waters was grilling the bank executives about the “student loan crisis” and was handed her ass as each and every one of them stated they no longer issue student loans since the federal government nationalized student loans? it would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic on Water’s part.
The “student loan crisis” is the direct result of democrats taking over student loans. But you’d hardly know that now.
https://youtu.be/JzSx1HBRCOg
“…was handed her ass..”
Ha, ha. She is all ass. And she’s about as smart as Hank Johnson who thinks Guam will capsize.
This is part of the woke left’s cardinal beliefs that you are not responsible for your actions-whether you violate the criminal law or incur a debt
Kind of spin on the Kennedy Principle of no responsibility due to alcohol….
Gotta love it. And we should all expect even more desperate attempts to improve Joe’s approval ratings as the 2022 midterm elections loom closer and closer.
Student loan payments suspended through May 2022 at this point. How much do you want to bet that student loan payments are going to be suspended through the end of 2022. At least.
The student loan program is a debt disaster for almost all liberal arts degree holders, who have presumably spent a large multiple of their prospective annual salaries as baristas to get essentially worthless degrees.
I would actually be in favor of student loan debt forgiveness, if:
1) No more liberal arts degrees would be subsidized;
2) Only students with demonstrated aptitude, such as SAT scores in the highest 10%, would be eligible for loans;
3) Only degrees in science, math, or similarly rigorous fields would qualify for the loans.
Everyone else could go to a JC for the first two years, and then a state college if they are determined to obtain a degree in, say, Women’s Studies.
Hopefully, many of the leftist professors would shortly be out of jobs if this strategy was followed.
Good luck on the last point; those leftist profs are dug in like ticks, with tenure protection (unless they are conservative of course).
Maybe STEM + health care professional degrees along with JC and trades for student loans and Pell grants. Those degree holders benefit the Nation and a case can be made to subsidize them with Federal loans and assistance. Outside the GI bill and Veteran vocational assistance programs both of which are earned benefits I don’t see a convincing argument for the Federal govt to subsidize other fields of study that are based on personal preference v National need.
This isn’t helping that average worker in American this is helping the well off. In liberal terms, this is a tax cut for the rich.
Finally someone can see through the smoke and mirrors.
What a rube/boob I was.
Paid my own way through college — jobs and student loans — for both of my university degrees and then laboriously paid back the student loans that I FULLY UNDERSTOOD AT THE TIME THAT I SIGNED ON THE DOTTED LINE that I was promising to pay back, in full,
And they weren’t “highly marketable” areas of study like “dung pottery and prairie-grass basket weaving among non-binary, pronoun-fluid indigenous people groups.”
Some of these doofuses probably also attended local campuses of State Touchy Feely University (otherwise known as STFU).
Wish they would just STFU.
I cannot help but wonder if you’re from a generation where the student loans needed were much smaller, and where tuition was low enough, it was possible to work your way through school if you didn’t want to take out student loans.
As a Gen-X’er, I’m somewhere in between. My tuition was somewhat high, and I got buckets of student loans — but I’m thankfully in a field where I was eventually able to make a somewhat decent amount of money (now being eaten away by inflation, of course). Even now, though, I haven’t been able to pay off a good chunk of my loans except via the COVID Inflation Payments — and even then, it still seems hopeless.
And it has only gotten worse since then.
Having said that, as much as I’d appreciate my student loans being forgiven, it drives me nuts that no one calling for student loan forgiveness is asking two fundamental questions:
(1) Why are colleges requiring so much tuition for such useless degrees, and
(2) What needs to be fixed to keep this from happening again?
I, for one, think that, at most, student loans should be made bankruptable again — if you can’t come around to a position to pay them off, you at least ought to have the aftereffects of having the debt cancelled — and that the schools providing the useless degrees should be held responsible for a part of that bankruptcy as well (after all, their degree wasn’t sufficient to pay off the loan).
And then I would scratch the student loan program altogether: it’s clear that all it has done was encourage colleges to balloon tuition to ridiculously high levels, so it’s now impossible to work and go to school at the same time, providing degrees that are far too expensive to be paid off by the employment made possible by those degrees.
Of course, none of this is going to happen, though, is it? Because the people calling for student loan cancellation never care about government accountability. They’re only looking to bribe their constituents.
“(1) Why are colleges requiring so much tuition for such useless degrees, and
(2) What needs to be fixed to keep this from happening again?”
We have to make kids smarter sooner?
Is somebody holding a gun to these kids’ heads and saying, “You have to go to college, to this very college, and get a worthless degree in X?”
No doubt some parents do this to their kids, so maybe we need to make the parents smarter, too. Like make then co-sign the loan, then they might think twice.
Me, I look at a good or service, I look at the price tag, and I decide whether or not it’s a good deal for me. I don’t fall in love with something and then struggle to pay whatever the seller is asking for it.
But what do I know? I’ve been mortgage-free since 1999, and otherwise debt-free all my life, and my entire inheritance consisted of a used car.
A lot of valuable knowledge in that post Henry. Appreciate you taking the time to write it. I enjoyed reading it.
An example of irony.
Joe Biden was a Senator and sponsor/supporter of all three bills that made it harder, then ultimately impossible, to discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy.
I’m 59, can I get one of these loans?
It depends. Do you have a degree (and accomanying gobs of debt) in a field that is unemployable, or in a field that is no longer considered relevant? Then yes, you can get all the student loans that your heart desires!
Are you in a field that is actually useful, and you’re merely looking for a student loan because you’ve been laid off yet again, and you’re burned out, wondering if it’s time to change your career? Sorry, you’re stuck, because you’re “employable”.
(Why yes, I have looked into it when I was unemployed and burned out. Why do you ask? Although I didn’t look into it too seriously — one reason I was burned out whas the constant worry over the student-loan Sword of Damocles hanging over my head — and it wasn’t someting I was particularly keen on wanting to add to ….)
A. Gutless coward.
B. Wimp.
C. Chicken.
D. All the above.
I propose the educational institutions who took financial advantage of the students by overcharging them be required to refund their tuition.