With the Democratic presidential debates set to begin in a couple of days, Sen. Bernie Sanders is releasing his giveaway plan to cancel $1.6 trillion worth of student loan debt held by 45 million Americans with a new tax on Wall Street and investors.
I am introducing legislation to tax Wall Street and eliminate the student debt of more than 40 million Americans with @RepJayapal and @Ilhan. It is time to #CancelStudentDebt. Watch LIVE now: https://t.co/ZvSGQtRqEd
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 24, 2019
“In a generation hard hit by the Wall Street crash of 2008, it forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education,” Sanders says in an excerpt from remarks prepared for a news conference today.
Sanders’ plan goes a step further than Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to cancel debt, which includes income restrictions. Warren’s plan calls for canceling $50,000 in student debt for people earning less than $100,000 a year, which affects about 42 million people.
Warren’s giveaway would be paid for with a 2% wealth tax on people who have more than $50 million, affecting the nation’s top 0.1% of households. Warren says her wealth tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a decade, which is enough to cancel student debt and pay for universal child care and free tuition at public colleges and universities. Experts, however, say her plan won’t raise that much because rich people will find ways to get around the tax, if it’s even constitutional.
Sanders’ plan in turn has no eligibility limitations and would be funded by not a wealth tax, but on a Wall Street tax that would raise the $2.2 trillion required to pay for the program and other college funding proposals.
It would include a 0.5% tax on stock trades, or 50 cents for every $100 worth of stock, a 0.1% levy on bonds and 0.005% fee on derivatives.
Anyone who has student loan debt, it would be canceled the moment the legislation is signed into law.
“We are going to forgive student debt in this country,” he said. “We have for the first time in the modern history of this country a younger generation that if we don’t change it, and we intend to change it, will have a lower standard of living than their parents, more in debt, lower wages than their parents, unable to buy the house that they desire.”
Sanders went on a recent Twitter spree to tout his proposal.
Nearly half of all college students are going hungry and the average college senior takes on $30,000 in debt.
But let's go beyond statistics. Share your personal story in a video or tweet, with the hashtag #CollegeForAll. And tell me what we should be doing to fix this crisis.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 22, 2019
Wealthy TV "experts" are shaming millennials for buying coffee and avocado toast. But young people are broke because they’re drowning in debt and low wages.
The ruling class wants to divide the young and old to distract us from an economy that’s rigged for the richest 1%. pic.twitter.com/v4LCNpoExU
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 23, 2019
This school teacher is one of many millions of Americans who is being crushed by insurmountable student debt. More than 1 million people default on their student loans each year. We have got to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. pic.twitter.com/CRd3jhKpAj
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 23, 2019
This is truly a revolutionary proposal: all Americans will get the college education or job training they need, while having all student debt forgiven.
We bailed out Wall Street in 2008. It’s time to tax Wall Street’s greed to help the American people. https://t.co/J4jqrRbLx3
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 24, 2019
The United States once led the world in the percentage of young college graduates. Today, we are in 11th place, one in every four Americans has student debt, and 40 percent of all borrowers are expected to default by 2023. #CancelStudentDebt https://t.co/L1WlmUWNUj
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 24, 2019
During the financial crisis, Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in American history. Now it is Wall Street’s turn to help rebuild the disappearing middle class. #CancelStudentDebt
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 24, 2019
Editor’s note: Share your thoughts below on Sanders’ plan to cancel student loan debt by taxing investors.