President Biden’s decision to cancel $10,000 of college debt for virtually all Americans with student debt and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients was a major victory for activists who have long been pushing for debt cancellation. ...So how did the debt cancellation advocates succeed? Through a combination of grass-roots organizing, smart messaging, the actions of a few politicians and a once-in-a-generation pandemic.
... today’s movement really sprang from the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011. Activists there rallied around the idea that the U.S. government had bailed out Wall Street after the 2008 financial crisis, but did little for everyday Americans, including young people who had limited job prospects after the Great Recession and tens of thousands of dollars in college debt. ...
After those protests, activists at first focused on actions that didn’t require major government action, such as buying millions of dollars of student and medical debt from private collectors and then forgiving it. They then pressed the federal government to cancel the loans of people who attended for-profit colleges that had defrauded students by grossly overstating how easily they would get jobs after graduation. They also worked hard to build their coalition beyond the left-wing types who had been part of the Occupy protests. In particular, an organization called the Debt Collective not only helped Americans get their loans canceled but also encouraged debtors to speak to the media and elected officials and to become debt relief activists themselves.
... The 2020 Democratic primaries were a turning point in the debt relief movement. Competing for left-wing support, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), both rolled out major plans on the issue. Sanders proposed to forgive all student debt; Warren, up to $50,000.
... Then, the pandemic hit. Amid economic upheaval, congressional Democrats called for a pause on student loan repayments. Somewhat surprisingly, congressional Republicans such as then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also backed the idea. ...
... in April 2020, Biden was looking to unify the Democratic Party for the general election by wooing liberal and younger Democrats who had backed Warren and Sanders in the Democratic primary. And Trump, his general election opponent, had already taken action on student loans. So Biden called for an immediate forgiveness of $10,000, explicitly citing Warren’s support of that idea, and pledged as president to forgive all debt accrued from public colleges for people making less than $125,000 a year. ...
... the cancellation movement kept gaining momentum. More centrist figures in the party, including Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and much of the Congressional Black Caucus, started urging Biden to cancel some student debt, often emphasizing the benefits to Black borrowers in particular.
By last spring, more than 80 percent of Democratic voters, key leaders throughout the party and basically every prominent Black Democrat were all in favor of canceling at least some student debt. The question became not whether Biden would cancel student loans but when and by how much. It’s still not clear whether Biden really supports debt cancellation or was forced into this week’s step by the force of the movement within his party. In either case, this was a true activist triumph: Within 10 years, the idea went from pipe dream to policy.
Bacon's Washington Post colleague Paul Waldman take a look at who is howling against Biden's decision.
... what’s at the heart of the objections to Biden’s loan forgiveness: Most of those making them are perfectly happy to have the government help some people, just not these people. And if that’s your argument against student loan forgiveness, you haven’t shown why the program is bad; all you’ve done is reveal yourself.
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