Something potentially life-changing for millions of people has happened.
On March 8, 2012, Rep. Hansen Clarke introduced H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. This act proposes that people with federal student loan debt pay 10% of their discretionary income for a period of 10 years, and then the rest of the debt would be forgiven. I’m not clear on the details, but I’m also hearing that somehow it proposes to roll private debt into federal debt so it would apply, too.
Student loan debt is financially crippling millions of people and having negative effects on the economic recovery efforts.
Suze Ormond gives a very good explanation here of why student loan debt is contributing to the economic crisis in America. Not to mention the personal cost for young people trying to start out in life with the double whammy of a poor economy and serious loan debt. What’s even less certain is how this will affect Americans for generations to come, with some calling young Americans “The New Lost Generation.”
When you can barely afford to pay your loans, you aren’t buying cars. You aren’t buying houses. You aren’t spending a lot of money on consumer items or vacations. You’re trying to scrape up enough money to pay that bill so Sallie Mae will stop sending you threatening letters.
Think what would happen if suddenly, all of the people sending most of their paychecks to student loan companies had hundreds of dollars more to spend on other things.
- Think how many people would move out of their family home and get a place of their own.
- Think how many people would buy a car.
- Think how many couples would decide to get married.
- Think how many people would be able to start saving for retirement, or be able to afford health insurance.
- Think how many people would buy clothes, shoes, electronics, or better-quality food.
- Think how many people would stop considering suicide as the only way out of an apparently impossible financial crisis.
- And now think how all that money flooding into the economy would improve things in America.
This is one economic problem that is not going to get better over time without action. It’s actually
getting worse. It’s not only students themselves suffering. With nowhere else to go, many have moved back in with families and are relying on family support. That’s
making it very hard for their parents to retire.To date, the government has done little to nothing to help out people with existing student debt, despite economists screaming from the rooftops that student loans are a bubble about to burst and when it does, it could tip the country right back into another full-blown recession or even depression. At the very least, it’s likely hampering efforts to get the economy back on track.
It’s telling when you consider where the government chooses to help. The government bailed out the banks. It bailed out the auto industry. It put in place measures to help people facing foreclosure. It’s looking at addressing credit card rules. But what has it done to help people with student loans, which – again – is now a larger problem than credit card debt?
This is a groundbreaking measure and it needs people to get behind it immediately and show their support, to let Congress know what such a relief could mean to a generation of young people struggling under a mountain of debt unlike anything our country has seen before.
I fully support The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 as a way to help stimulate the economy, remove a financial and emotional burden from millions of people, and help pull the country out of the sinkhole it entered nearly four years ago.
The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 will stop the bleeding. We need other things to happen, too.
- We need representatives to call for student loan reforms to stop the problem for future generations.
- We need representatives to call for colleges and universities to bring down tuition for current and future students.
- We need representatives to support community and technical colleges.
- We need to change the tenor of conversation about higher education in America.
- We need media to start asking the hard questions about why this happened in the first place.
But first, we have to put a tourniquet on the debt that is bleeding Americans dry.
If you support this bill, contact your representatives and senators and tell them so immediately. Call them. Email them. Write letters.
For more information, check out http://forgivestudentloandebt.com/
You can track the bill through GovTrack here.
Sign the petition here!
And SPREAD THE WORD!
![stfuconservatives:
cruelyouth:
ceepolk:
thinkspeakstress:
trubr0wn:
invisibleblackunicorn:
trubr0wn:
madamethursday:
[Image: A picture of a tall, very thin Black woman with her shoulder over a shorter, older white man wearing traditional Orthodox Jewish clothing on a New York sideway.]
staghunts:
“This one is very serious, guys:
I came upon these two on the sidewalk. They were having a conversation. “Excuse me,” I said, addressing the girl: “I’m sorry to interrupt, but is there anyway I can take your photo?”
“Why would you want my photo?” she asked.
“Because you look beautiful,” I said. And she did. She was Sudanese. There is a very distinct beauty among people from the Sudan, and she was filled up with it. Suddenly the man cut in:
“I was just telling her she was beautiful,” he said.
Naively, I assumed I had just walked up on one stranger giving a compliment to another. I wanted to capture the moment. “Let me take your photograph together,” I said. The man seemed reluctant, he started smiling nervously and inching away. But the girl called him back.
“Come take a picture with me,” she said. Encouraged by her attention, he returned. She put her arm around him, and I took the photo.
As I examined the photos on my camera, the man started whispering to the girl. She answered him in a loud voice: “I told you! I’m not that kind of girl.” She seemed agitated now. Finally sensing that I had misread the situation, I stepped between them. The man began hurrying down the sidewalk.
When the man left, the girl’s demeanor changed completely. She seemed shaken. Her eyes were tearing up. “He just offered me five hundred dollars to go out with him,” she said. “And then when I said ‘no,’ he offered me one thousand. Why does this always happen to me?”
“It happens a lot?” I asked.
“All the time,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m getting emotional. I just can’t go out of my house without this kind of thing happening. I have a son. I’m a mother. I would never degrade myself like that. I just don’t understand why this keeps happening.”
“Do you mind if I tell this story?” I asked.
“Please,” she said. “Tell it.”
Let’s hope this man, and all men, realize the emotional damage they are inflicting on the women they try to buy. In the meantime, feel free to SHARE.*
Dear Tumblr, fuck you for trying to erase this.
I’m saving this post because as many times as Tumblr tries to erase this woman’s story and act like anything about this was okay, that’s as many times as I’m reposting it. They can either cut me off or stop being assnuggets about this. whichEVER.
i will always reblog this. because if this woman were white, the mass-erasure of this image and story would not be happening. and that just speaks volumes to me. the bigotry that contributes to this woman’s constant harassment is the same bigotry that led to the erasure of this story in order to ‘protect’ this man. they are COMPLETELY connected. this is a vicious cycle that perpetuates anti-blackness and the degradation and silencing of black women and women of color as a whole.
oh look trubr0wn just deployed more truth bombs.
i am the truth bomb terrorist.
FUCK YOU TUMBLR. I will reblog this every god damn twelve hours. You will NOT erase this woman’s story just because HONY is a bigot who is full of shit. Tumblr staff is full of shit. They are ALL full of shit. And fuck every single one of you shitty people for thinking that you’re going to win. You will NOT.
Hey this disappeared off my tumblr how strange
anyway, here it is again, supporting this lovely lady who has to put up with this crap just because she exists and goes outside, and to call shame on a society that would actually force her to put her arm around the creep who just upped his price after she told him that she wouldn’t whore for him
Here it is, calling attention to the FACT that the aggressor, the perpetrator of this outrage was the one protected, and the victim is just supposed to disappear
To that I say no
no
Open season on Black women is OVER.
I’m going to back up my Tumblr.
But I just want to see if Tumblr will ignore the e-mail I just wrote to them getting unwanted messages by users I’ve told to leave me alone and will send me another e-mail about “violating copyright,” if not try to delete my blog for reblogging this picture and story that needs to be seen and heard.
I’m not claiming ownership of anything, BTW. Picture, story behind the picture, and the erasure of the picture copyrighted2012 by humansofnewyork.tumblr.com . And reblogging this picture has an educational reason behind it — to show how black women are dehumanized, and then silenced if they ever speak out.
Tumblr deleted this post from everyone’s blog. Here it is again. And people have saved copies to their computers, including me. Story’s not going away. The internet is forever.
-Jess](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3v4ahIMJ41qlxu8ho1_500.jpg)
