[We’re not going to get to full debt cancellation without
organizing and pushing Joe Biden] [[link removed]]

“NOT DOING THIS IS A CHOICE”: BIDEN DRAGS HIS FEET ON CANCELING
STUDENT DEBT DESPITE CAMPAIGN PLEDGE  
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Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, Astra Taylor, Braxton Brewington
February 18, 2021
Democracy Now!
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_ We’re not going to get to full debt cancellation without
organizing and pushing Joe Biden _

, Democracy Now!

 

Students, campaigners and top Democrats have been pushing President
Joe Biden to use executive authority to cancel at least $50,000 in
student loan debt per person. Student loan debt in the U.S. stands at
$1.7 trillion, with some 45 million people owing money. Filmmaker and
organizer Astra Taylor, an author, documentary director and organizer
with the Debt Collective, says Biden has clear legal authority to
cancel student debt. “Not doing this is a choice,” she says. We
also speak with Braxton Brewington, a digital strategist with the Debt
Collective, who says student debt cancellation is also politically
smart. “President Biden has a unique opportunity to bring together a
broad coalition of individuals who otherwise would be unlikely to come
together around a policy,” he says.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is _Democracy Now!_, democracynow.org, _The
Quarantine Report_. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

We turn now to the student debt crisis, which tops $1.7 trillion in
the United States, with some 45 million people owing money. Students,
campaigners, as well as top Democrats, have been pushing President
Biden to use executive authority to cancel at least $50,000 in student
loan debt. Biden was asked Tuesday about his plans to do so at
a CNN town hall in Milwaukee.

JOYCELYN FISH: We need student loan forgiveness beyond the potential
$10,000 your administration has proposed. We need at least a $50,000
minimum. What will you do to make that happen?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I will not make that happen. It depends on
whether or not you go to a private university or public university. It
depends on the idea that I say to a community, “I’m going to
forgive the debt,” the billions of dollars in debt, for people who
have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn and schools my children — I
went to a great school. I went to a state school. But is that going to
be forgiven, rather than use that money to provide for early education
for young children who are — come from disadvantaged circumstances?

AMY GOODMAN: Democrats hit back, with Senators Elizabeth Warren and
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowing to keep pressing Biden, noting
that both Presidents Obama and Trump used executive authority to
cancel student debt.

Freshman New York Congressmember Mondaire Jones wrote a piece
[[link removed]] recently
in the _New York Daily News_ detailing his own experience being
saddled with student debt after leaving Harvard Law. He wrote, quote,
“Canceling $50,000 in student debt is an issue of economic, racial
and LGBTQ justice.”

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday Biden
would not take any executive action until his Justice Department is
installed and reviews the matter, and suggested Congress send Biden a
bill to cancel $10,000 in student debt.

For more, we’re joined by Astra Taylor, organizer with the Debt
Collective, who wrote the foreword to their new book, _Can’t Pay,
Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition_.
Astra is also the director of the documentary _You Are Not a Loan_.
That’s L-O-A-N. And Braxton Brewington, digital strategist with the
Debt Collective, working to end the student loan crisis.

Astra, so this is becoming a major issue right now. Of course, it has
been for students who have debt, but right now to the top. Biden is
asked about this, and he puts his foot down. Your response?

ASTRA TAYLOR: He put his foot down, and he put his foot in his
mouth, in the sense that it was a very meandering response. And it was
very misleading. In fact, he seemed to be conflating two of his
policies.

So, let’s be very clear: Joe Biden ran on two promises: one, to
cancel $10,000 of student debt across the board, for everyone, as part
of a COVID relief package, acknowledging that we’re in a deadly
pandemic; in addition, he ran promising undergraduate debt
cancellation for people who earn up to $125,000 a year, who attend
specific schools, public colleges, HBCUs, historically Black colleges
and universities. So, we need to at least hold him to his basic
promises.

But what he did in that rambling response, he invoked straw figures.
He invoked false scarcity and nonsolutions. So, for example, you know,
saying that we have to choose between investing in early childhood
education and justice for student debtors, that’s a false choice.
These things are not opposed.

What I take some encouragement from, and I think your listeners
should, as well, is that, you know, his press secretary clarified some
of his remarks and said, as you just shared with us, that they are
actually looking into the legal possibilities of executive action. So,
what I see in this is, actually, in their mixed messaging, that this
is very much in play. This is still a fight.

And we have to be absolutely clear: President Biden has the authority
to cancel all student debt. He was not being forthright when he
questioned that in his remarks. He has the authority. It was granted
by Congress decades ago. And he can erase all federal student loans.
And he should.

Debtors are not asking for debt forgiveness. We’re asking for
justice, because Joe Biden, let’s be clear, he didn’t have to
graduate with student debt. He talked about his kids and how they had
student debt. But his generation was able to go to college and
graduate without this enormous burden. So, all people are asking for
is parity, to replace this broken system that he played such a crucial
role in building.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Astra, your response to those who’ve
suggested that canceling student debt through executive action could
lead to legal challenges from student loan companies and other firms
involved in debt collection? Is that correct? And these would not be
risks if student debt cancellation occurred through Congress.

ASTRA TAYLOR: So, the legal experts — and here, I’m relying on
Eileen Connor from Harvard Law — are very clear that this authority
exists. So, if you are able to lend money, then you’re able to not
collect it, right? So, if I lend you $10, I don’t have to collect
it. So, the vast majority of student loans are held by the federal
government. This is the government lending. The government has the
right to decide not to collect.

Now, sure, there would be some legal challenges. I’m sure there’d
be some lawsuits. But what I’m hearing from the real experts in this
space is that these are not major concerns. It’s like, “Bring it.
Bring it on. Let’s fight it out.” But this is not a reason to be
cowardly. And it’s certainly not a reason to just rely on Congress,
because we all know how broken our political system is.

And so, if Biden and his administration have this authority, they have
this power — again, it was granted by Congress in the Higher
Education Act of 1965; this is not an overreach — then use the
power in your possession. And I think we have to be clear that not
doing so is a choice.

There’s no limit. Doesn’t have to be $10K. Doesn’t have to be
$50,000, which is actually — the researchers who proposed $50,000,
based on thinking about racial justice and other factors, have
actually updated their figures in three years from now. The people
behind $50,000 are saying $75,000. But he can cancel all federal
student loan debt. And we have to be clear: Not doing this is a
choice.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’d like to bring Braxton Brewington into the
conversation. Braxton, can you respond to what Biden said and talk
about your own experience as a student and with debt?

BRAXTON BREWINGTON: Absolutely. What [Biden] said is — couldn’t
be further from the truth. Not only is it a choice, it’s a policy
assault. The individuals that would benefit the most from student loan
debt [cancellation] are individuals like me, Black and Brown
borrowers, mostly Black women borrowers, who, frankly, have upwards of
$35,000, $50,000, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt,
that could benefit from this policy.

And President Biden has a unique opportunity to bring together a broad
coalition of individuals, who, in otherwise, would be unlikely to come
together around a policy. We know that one in five Trump supporters
said they would consider supporting Joe Biden in the election if Joe
Biden were to cancel student debt. And we just saw an NBC survey the
other day saying 40% of Black voters would consider sitting out the
next election if Joe Biden did not consider supporting student loan
debt [cancellation]. And we also know that nonvoters — a great way
to bring nonvoters into the democratic process is to cancel student
loan debt.

So, this is a tool that is widely available to President Biden. And
him not using executive action to cancel full student loan debt is a
policy assault on people, individuals like me, who, frankly, voted for
Joe Biden in hopes of this policy becoming a reality, because we know
that not only is this a student loan debt crisis, but there’s a
pandemic, where people are in perpetual fear of losing their lives.
And the last thing folks like me need is to be worried about a debt
that the federal government has, frankly, proved, since March and into
September, that they don’t need our payments in order to create
revenue for the government to function.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Braxton, talk about your own experience. Where did
you go to college? What kind of debt did you accrue? And what would it
mean for it to be forgiven?

BRAXTON BREWINGTON: Yeah, I went to North Carolina A&T State
University, which is the largest public HBCU in the country. I
graduated with two bachelors, actually, in journalism and political
science, like many of my partners. And I accrued, in my name, tens of
thousands of dollars’ worth of debt. I haven’t checked recently,
but it’s upwards of $35,000, $37,000. And that’s just the debt
that’s taken out in my name. My parents were fortunate enough to be
able to take out a loan in their name on my behalf. And so, when we
accumulate all of that debt, it’s even more than the debt that I
have.

And how has that affected me? Luckily, I’m only out of college for
the past couple of years, and so I’ve been in deferment. I haven’t
had to make any payments on my student loan debt. But I was gearing up
to, a couple of months into the pandemic — if the pandemic didn’t
happen, I would have had to start making hundreds of dollars’ worth
of payments.

And I think one thing important to — important thing to realize is
that 40% of people who have student debt don’t even have that
diploma. So, we are expecting people who went to college and, for
whatever reason, did not get their diploma — and we’re expecting
them to pay that debt, when they’re getting paid what a high school
graduate earns.

And so, you know, there’s lots of aspects to this, as well, not
forgetting seniors — this is an intergenerational issue
— seniors who can get 15% of their student loan checks — their
Social Security checks garnished for student loan debt, which is
insane. And so, this is an intergenerational issue that affects not
only myself and my peers, but seniors and the people that I’m in
community with.

And so, I can’t stress enough that, you know, again, to not — for
Joe Biden to — we’re 30 days into this administration. That is 30
days of a policy failure that President Biden has allowed, in terms of
not canceling student loan debt.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Astra Taylor, I wanted you to respond to this
tweet of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As soon as Biden talked about not
going to $50,000, she struck back. And among the things she has said
is: “Very wealthy people already have a student loan forgiveness
program. It’s called their parents. The idea that millionaires and
billionaires are willingly letting their kids drown in federal student
loans & that’s why we can’t go big on forgiveness is about as
silly as it sounds.” Explain what she’s saying and what you see at
this point needs to be done. Fit in Jubilee 100 with this.

ASTRA TAYLOR: Brilliant. I was going to quote that tweet, because
it’s so spot-on. So, one of the common responses — and when I said
Joe Biden invoked these straw figures, this is what I was pointing to.
He painted this portrait that student debt cancellation would lead to
cancellation for people who went to Harvard and Penn. And the argument
is essentially that student debt cancellation is regressive, because
this stereotype of affluent, Ivy League-educated people would get
relief.

You know, as Braxton brilliantly just laid out, that’s not the case.
That’s not the real demographics of student debt. The children of
millionaires and billionaires do not take out debt to go to school.
Their parents pay the price. They pay the price of tuition up front.
What that means, actually, is they pay less over time, because people
like Braxton have to borrow, and their parents, they borrow money, and
they pay interest. So people who are poor pay much more for the same
degree over years and decades, because that’s the way that debt
works. So student debt itself is regressive. It’s means-tested. It
hits the people who have the least income, the least intergenerational
wealth, who are the most vulnerable, the most likely to face wage
discrimination at the workplace — it hits them the hardest.

And so, this is why Joe Biden’s framework is deeply flawed. We need
to push back on this and say it’s an economic justice issue, it’s
a racial justice issue, and canceling student debt is also a democracy
issue, because we all are entitled to live in a society where our
fellow people can pursue education.

We’re not going to get to full debt cancellation without organizing
and pushing Joe Biden. He is, famously, the senator from Delaware, the
credit card capital of the world. He has helped create this crisis.
He’s made it harder for student debtors to get relief over the
years. It’s organizing that got us to this point.

We have organized a student debt strike, the Biden Jubilee 100, 100
strikers — symbolizing his first 100 days — demanding justice.
We invite people to go to DebtCollective.org
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and for upcoming protests to push this administration to use the power
they possess to do the right thing and to start to enact
this FDR-size presidency that we’ve been promised and that we do
not seem to be getting.

AMY GOODMAN: Astra Taylor, we want to thank you so much for being
with us, organizer with the Debt Collective and author of the foreword
to the new book, _Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic
Disobedience and Debt Abolition_, and Braxton Brewington, digital
strategist with the Debt Collective. We want to thank you both so much
for being with us.

_Your support is vital to sustain and grow DEMOCRACY NOW! Please
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