 So we already know that Joe Biden isn't going to be canceling more than $10,000 of student debt, and we keep getting announcements about how he's getting closer to making a decision. But each time we hear news about what he's going to do, it seems to get worse. So the latest is that he's apparently going to be doing $10,000 in cancellation of student debt via executive order. But it's going to be means tested. How much he doesn't necessarily know when this is going to happen. Not too sure about that either. So as insider explains, though details remain in flux, the White House is inching towards providing $10,000 in debt relief for singles earning $150,000 and below, along with couples earning $300,000 and under under those parameters, roughly 97% of borrowers would qualify in an apparent attempt to keep relief narrowly targeted for those in default. Yeah. So there's a number of reasons why this should not be means tested. But the most important one is that means testing this program could kneecap the entire program and actually lead to people who need it the most losing out on this $10,000. As Politico explains, the Education Department doesn't have individual income information for most of the 45 million Americans who have federal student loans. The Internal Revenue Service has relied on Americans prior year tax information to dole out benefits tied to income, such as stimulus checks and Democrats expanded child tax credit payments. The Education Department, by contrast, does not have access to that trove of income data. Federal law tightly restricts how the IRS can share taxpayer information with other agencies. The result Education Department officials have concluded is that the agency is unable to cancel federal student loans based on a borrower's income level without requiring some action from the borrower. Department officials have told the White House they would need to set up some sort of application process to determine whether borrowers qualify for relief according to the people familiar with the discussions. That added layer of bureaucracy will likely take longer for the Education Department to implement compared with across the board forgiveness, and it would mean that borrowers would miss out on the benefit if they don't know to sign up for or apply for it. So they're actually going to make it more difficult for lower income people to get their student debt canceled, make them jump through hoops, all so that way he can maybe fend off some criticism. I mean, you're going to get criticism regardless. But all you're trying to do is appease people who don't want any student debt cancellation, and you're making it more difficult for the people who you're trying to help, assuming that $10,000 would be helpful at all. And AOC makes this point as well. And she explains why it's not a good idea to means test this. $10,000 means tested forgiveness is just enough to anger the people against it and the people who need forgiveness the most. $10,000 relieves most the people who owe the least. What relief is there for the most desperate for them? Interest will undo that $10,000 fast. We can do better. And she's absolutely right about that. I will gladly take the $10,000. Let me be very clear. I'll take it. It's better than nothing. It's the most that we've gotten from the federal government before. But that $10,000 isn't even going to wipe out my interest that I've accumulated since I've taken on these student loans. So it's not going to make us any more likely of paying off student debt. And also it's a little bit insulting for the government to cancel $10,000 via executive order and communicate to people that they have the capacity to do this and Biden has the authority to do this. But he's choosing not to. He is deliberately keeping you in debt for no reason. He can wipe it out. But he's saying, I'm not going to do that. It's just it's ridiculous. Now, another issue that needs to be addressed is the interest rates on these student loans. Even more centrist Democratic Party senators like Michael Bennett have called on Biden to reduce the interest rate to zero percent for student loan borrowers. So that way they actually have a chance at paying them off if you're not going to cancel them. This is important because there are so many people have shared online that they've already paid back more than they've originally borrowed, but they owe more because of the interest rates. Now, we know that the government can do this. We know that Biden has the authority to do this because we just saw them do it with PPP loans. You know, this was supposed to be something with the CARES Act that helped small businesses during a global pandemic. The problem was that a lot of wealthy individuals and influencers like MrBeast on YouTube took advantage of this. Podcast hosts took advantage of this and it was a zero interest loan. And then what did the government end up doing? Canceling it. So you have podcasts on Twitter, like Muller, she wrote, talking about how, you know, don't you dare be angry if Biden only canceled $10,000 in student debt. Meanwhile, this individual took out a $52,000 PPP loan. Zero interest, by the way. And then it was forgiven by the federal government. And then this person is saying, well, don't you dare be mad at Biden? Don't you dare let him down? I mean, so when can we be mad at Democrats? Is it ever permissible for us to say that they're not doing enough because they're very clearly not doing enough? As Derek Johnson put it, this is basically Biden pouring a bucket of ice water on a forest fire. Like, you're not going to do anything to stop the forest fire and the fire will continue to spread. And speaking of Derek Johnson, I wanted to go to the point that he makes about this because many economists are saying that cancelling student debt is one of the main ways you can reduce the racial wealth gap. And yet people who are against this are framing it as if it's some sort of a giveaway to the rich, which is incredibly preposterous and dishonest. So Derek Johnson explains black Americans are the only people who have student debt higher than their median annual income. Ten thousand dollars in cancellation would not place their student debt lower than their annual income. Today, the average white family has roughly ten times the amount of wealth as the average black family, while white college graduates have over seven times more wealth than black college graduates. Black borrowers typically owe 50 percent more in student debt upon graduation than their white peers. Four years after graduation, this gap increases to one hundred percent. On average, black borrowers have nearly fifty three thousand dollars in student loan debt four years after graduation, almost twice as much as their white counterparts. Thirty seven point five percent of black borrowers will default at some point compared to twelve point four percent of white borrowers. But yet if you listen to the mainstream media, Chuck Todd, if you watch Real Time with Bill Maher, they'll claim that this is some sort of a giveaway to the rich, because if you went to college, you're definitely rich. Yes, every single person who went to college is rich. This is such a stupid talking point because the people who are rich they went to Ivy League schools and the rich people didn't take out student loans. Those of us who took out student loans did so because that was the only way we were able to go to college. And in this economy, we were told that the way that we can get a good paying job and make a livable wage is to get an education. And yet you have many people with degrees that are essentially useless at this point, that's not me saying that education isn't intrinsically valuable. But the degrees don't go as far in this day and age. They're comparable to a high school education. But yet, you know, all these things we were told were lies. You know, the federal government who led us astray is just letting us suffer. And they're doing ten thousand dollars in cancellation when they could do more. Previously, Biden said, you know, I don't know that I have the authority to do that, but he's going to demonstrate to everyone that he has the authority to cancel student debt, but he's just going to cancel ten thousand dollars. He's going to make sure that it's not enough to alleviate the suffering. He's just going to do the bare minimum. So you hopefully stay satisfied. And he's going to learn very quickly that this is insufficient and he has to do more if he's serious about letting people pay off this debt. I mean, again, if you're not going to cancel student debt, which you should at least cut the interest rate to zero percent. But I mean, we're talking about the bare minimum. This is barely crumbs that he's giving to people who are currently burdened with student debt. Imagine what people could do if they had their student debt canceled. They could purchase homes, purchase cars, start families for the first times. So he could unsettle this entire generation and Gen Z to be clear, millennials and Gen Z, he could unsettle these two generations of student debt. And this isn't the only two generations, Gen X and some boomers have student debt too, but he's just not going to do it because it's Joe Biden. And why do something that's incredibly popular when you could just not do anything or do the bare minimum? And I guess when from that, I just, I'm so I'm so confused by the strategy of Democrats and Joe Biden, but that's because they don't really have a cohesive strategy. They're just doing the bare minimum, keeping those seats warm for Republicans until they inevitably take back power because Democrats just haven't done enough and voters will enmasse stay at home, which is something that's horrifying, considering the fascistic anti-democratic threat that the Republican Party poses. But this is the situation in the country and it's just really frustrating.