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*By the standards of U.S. public policy and media opinion, we've got an enormous victory, and a shockingly scandalous extravagance, to shout about in* *Biden's cancellation of a portion of student debt*.
We'll take the victory, but only as a step in the right direction. A *column* [ [link removed] ] by RootsAction's India Walton and Sam Rosenthal has been widely published making the case that we need the *cancellation* [ [link removed] ] of all student debt and the *creation* [ [link removed] ] of free public college.
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Biden says this debt cancellation will cost the U.S. government $24 billion per year. *
But is that a lot of money, or is it just a lot of money to give to people who tend not to fund political campaigns or media outlets? *
The same U.S. government is delaying expansion of Social Security while *crafting* [ [link removed] ] more tax breaks for the wealthy, and yet has found over $60 billion thus far "for Ukraine" but mostly going straight to U.S. weapons companies, which will also be benefitting from over $800 billion going to the Pentagon. And the media silence is deafening.
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Maybe the money for student debt relief is just a lot of money for something that Congress Members now publicly *worry* [ [link removed] ] about as a threat to military recruitment.
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If the money were going to health insurance companies, it would apparently be perfectly acceptable. *The same U.S. government is talking about ceasing to provide free COVID shots and treatments -- without *moving to* [ [link removed] ] Medicare For All, even though studies suggest that doing so would reduce healthcare spending by $400 billion per year, not to mention saving 70,000 lives per year in normal times and 338,000 lives thus far among those lost to COVID.
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We seem to have a great governmental reluctance to spend money when it can do a lot of good or save a lot of lives. The U.S. has seized billions of dollars belonging to and desperately needed by the people of Afghanistan, and we need to keep *insisting* [ [link removed] ] that it give that money back.
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We're also continuing *to push* [ [link removed] ] for a real Green New Deal as far more valuable than the Senate filibuster -- and to *demand* [ [link removed] ] the *abandonment* [ [link removed] ] of the* #DirtyDeal *made to appease the fossil fuel interests that have corrupted Senator Joe Manchin.
In other RootsAction work, we're *pressing* [ [link removed] ] for re-joining the* Iran nuclear agreement*.
RootsAction's Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have *a new column* [ [link removed] ] about the *midterm elections*. And we continue to work *to create* [ [link removed] ] automatic voter registration and *to undo* [ [link removed] ] the Electoral College.
*In DefuseNuclearWar [ [link removed] ] news, you can pencil these dates in on your calendar: *
* October 2: Defuse Nuclear War livestream.
* October 14: Defuse Nuclear War informational picket lines at local Congressional offices
* October 16: Defuse Nuclear War day of actions everywhere, on the anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis
Help us do more! This work is only possible with your financial support. *Please chip in $5 now. * [ [link removed] ]
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-- The RootsAction.org Team
*www.RootsAction.org
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