With Ron DeSantis and other’s…
Some American’s seem to be working against trying to help minorities and even women obtain more voting rights, health, economic and political gains….
Democratic President Joe Biden has tried in several cases to help, only to be rebuffed by strong obstinance from Republicans and even some Democrats….
The latest failure for Biden maybe in the his effort to lift the burden of some Student Loan debt*…..
Years and decades of movement for ‘Civil and other Rights’ are under a concerted efforts by the American Right to erase….Scared of what America is NOW and moving more to be…They are working to claw back to a American 70 years or so in the past….
And they are NOW brutally up front about their efforts to go backwards….
Biden promised Black voters he would be a different kind of president, one who did not just pay rhetorical tribute to equality but one who took concrete action to improve African Americans’ position in society. And as he prepares a reelection campaign focused largely on rebuilding the economy, many of those voters, while blaming Republicans for blocking equity initiatives, also ask if Biden could have done more.
“Right now, I would give him a B for effort and a C for execution,” said Rodney Brooks, author of “Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap.” “And the execution part is that he’s not able to get it done, because there is so much opposition to any of these programs that would lessen or improve the racial wealth gap.”
Biden’s supporters say that he has in fact offered an impressive array of proposals for closing the wealth gap but that they had difficulty surviving GOP opposition in a narrowly divided Congress.
Congress did pass an expanded child tax credit of up to $3,600, which helped lower child poverty and reduce racial gaps among young families, but lawmakers allowed it to expire in December 2021.Other major bills Biden has signed into law, such as his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and a measure to reduce drug costs and protect the environment, include provisions aimed at addressing racial inequity, though they are less ambitious than the proposals that have collapsed.
With Republicans now in control of the House, Democrats and civil rights activists have little hope that the remaining pieces of Biden’s racial justice program will be politically feasible for the rest of his term. That would force the president to ask voters to give him another four years to deliver on those priorities.
Against that backdrop, the student loan relief program stood out as one initiative that could have an immediate impact on racial disparities. More than 25 million people applied for the program after Biden announced the program last year, and the White House emphasizes that the forgiveness of up to $20,000 in student loans would target borrowers with the highest economic need, helping “narrow the racial wealth gap.”
But amid legal challenges, including from Republican state attorneys general, federal judges halted the program last year before any of the debt could be discharged. The Supreme Court will ultimately decide the program’s fate.
Biden himself had been initially skeptical of the push to have the federal government cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt, even as the idea grew in popularity during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But after he took office, Black leaders redoubled their efforts to convince him to support broad student debt cancellation, framing the issue as one of racial justice. The lobbying intensified as other priorities, including voting rights legislation and policing reform, stalled in Congress…
Black students take out loans more often, borrow more money and are more likely to fall behind on payments, research shows. Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor at Columbia University, found that before the pandemic, nearly half of Black borrowers experienced defaults within 12 years of starting college.
A yawning wealth gap and the high cost of college have fueled their reliance on loans, while labor discrimination and income inequality made the debt difficult to repay, said Jalil Mustaffa Bishop, an assistant professor of education at Villanova University.
“With Black borrowers, it’s not just that they’re in debt, it’s that student debt pushes them into a negative wealth hole,” Bishop said. “It takes widespread transformative policies to get them out, really just to get them to zero, to even start building wealth.”….
Student Laon fall backs for the President? …
“There’s ways that we can work around it, especially in conversations I’ve had with experts on the issue. What those are? Not sure yet, but there are ways to work around it and figure out how we can still get this relief for people,” he added.
Apart from complete debt cancellation, the Biden administration has worked to make it so student loan borrowers have an easier time repaying their student loans once payments resume after a pandemic-related pause.
One of the proposals the administration has made is changes to lower payments for income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. IDR plans make it so a person pays back a certain amount each month, and after 20 to 25 years the rest of their debt will be forgiven.
Under the proposed changes, an individual making less than $30,500 would have $0 monthly payments, and each month would still count towards the time it takes to get debt forgiveness. Those making above $30,500 will still see a benefit as they will only have to pay 5 percent of their discretionary income, not the current 10 percent.
The number of years for forgiveness would also be shortened, with those who have debts of $12,000 original principal or less able to receive forgiveness after 10 years. Every $1,000 above a $12,000 original principal would give another year of monthly payments up to the 20 to 25 year mark before forgiveness could apply….
*BTW?
Joe Biden NEVER wanted to forgive so much student loan debt and has been pushed into trying to do…..
In fact?
The Joe Biden he became President was a much more middle of the road guy, who is now returning to that place looking as run for another term in next years election….