Bernie Sanders unveiling plan to cancel all $1.6 trillion in student debt - New York Post

Two days before the first Democratic presidential debates, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday will unveil legislation canceling all $1.6 trillion of student debt held by about 45 million Americans.

Sanders will announce the legislation along with its House sponsors, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, CNN reported.

“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 said in remarks prepared for delivery at a news conference.

The legislation goes further than a signature proposal by Sanders’ Democratic primary rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose debt relief package was subject to income eligibility levels.

The key difference is that Warren’s proposal considers the income of the borrowers, canceling $50,000 in debt for those earning less than $100,000 a year and affecting about 42 million people.

Warren’s plan would be paid for by imposing a 2 percent fee on fortunes greater than $50 million, a wealth tax designed to target the nation’s top 0.1 percent of households.

Warren projects the levy would raise $2.75 trillion over a decade, enough to pay for a universal child care plan and free tuition at public colleges and universities.

Under the Sanders plan — which has no eligibility limitations and would be funded with a new tax on Wall Street speculation — anyone’s student debt of any kind would be canceled the second the legislation is signed into law.

Sanders’ bill and Warren’s plan are part of their broader appeal to liberals with a series of progressive policy ideas on issues such as health care, technology and education.

Sanders, who has long spoken about finding ways to relieve the burden of student debt, teased the announcement during an event in South Carolina on Saturday night.

“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 also plans to release a detailed plan — centered on new taxes on Wall Street — to raise the $2.2 trillion required to pay for the program and his other college funding proposals.

It will include a 0.5 percent tax on stock trades (or 50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1 percent fee on bonds, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivatives, according to CNN.

Sanders believes that could raise over $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

With Post wires

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