Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau put forward a new regulation to limit bank overdraft fees. The CFPB pointed out that the average overdraft fee is $35 even though majority of overdrafts are under $26 and paid back with-in 3 days. The new regulation will push overdraft fees down to as little as $3 and not more than $14, saving the American public collectively 3.5 billion dollars a year.

The Environmental Protection Agency put forward a regulation to fine oil and gas companies for emitting methane. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas, after CO2 and is responsible for 30% of the rise of global temperatures. This represents the first time the federal government has taxed a greenhouse gas. The EPA believes this rule will help reduce methane emissions by 80%

The Energy Department has awarded $104 million in grants to support clean energy projects at federal buildings, including solar panels at the Pentagon. The federal government is the biggest consumer of energy in the nation. The project is part Biden's goal of reducing the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030. The Energy Department estimates it'll save taxpayers $29 million in the first year alone and will have the same impact on emissions as taking over 23,000 gas powered cars off the road.

The Education Department has cancelled 5 billion more dollars of student loan debt. This will effect 74,000 more borrowers, this brings the total number of people who've had their student loan debt forgiven under Biden through different programs to 3.7 Million

U.S. Agency for International Development has launched a program to combat lead exposure in developing countries like South Africa and India. Lead kills 1.6 million people every year, more than malaria and AIDS put together.

Congressional Democrats have reached a deal with their Republican counter parts to revive the expanded the Child Tax Credit. The bill will benefit 16 million children in its first year and is expected to lift 400,000 children out of poverty in its first year. The proposed deal also has a housing provision that could see 200,000 new affordable rental units

(The Washington Post)

For those who don't know, the US Supreme Court just ruled that states are allowed to enforce trans healthcare for minors. Undoubtedly, this will trigger a wave of other states that either hope to pass or have already passed policies to do the same. This is going to kill children, and harm more in long-lasting ways.

So, how can you help?

FUCKING VOTE. I don't care if you don't like Biden, he's not the only one on the ballot. Vote representatives into your city council who will turn our city into a sanctuary city. Vote for governors and state reps who will, even if they don't pass new protections, oppose bans being pushed through. Chsllenge and kick out conservative incumbents who are banking on their races being obscure enough for people to not vote in.

Anyone telling you voting is useless is either lying to you or grossly uninformed and think saying this is the edgy new take that will make them look hip and informed. Yes, the system is broken. But short of burning the whole thing to the ground (which personally I'm not a fan of as I quite enjoy having like. Roads and the FDA) what we can do is to change it for the better, by starting with the local races and working our way up.

Source

Maybe sit this one out, yes?

How Joe Biden's Student Debt Forgiveness Affects You

Just so we can get this out of the way, the Higher Education Act gives the Education Secretary (who answers to the President) broad authority to wipe out debts in general. This means Biden has full legal authority to forgive all student loan debt, mortgage debt, and medical debt. But we're focusing on student loan debt.

He did not forgive all student loan debt. But his executive order will cancel between $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debt.

You qualify for student loan debt forgiveness if you make less than $125,000 individually, or less than $250,000 if you're married. If you make less than 120k and received a Pell Grant in college, you're eligible for up to $20,000 in student loan debt forgiveness.

How do you know you received a Pell Grant? Go to StudentAid.gov and then go to "My Aid" to review your account. If you received financial aid while at college, then find and review your paperwork.

Go to the Education Department's subscription page and sign up, because once you do, they'll notify you as soon as the process has opened.

What if StudentAid's site crashes because of high traffic? You can use Summer, a debt management software program. It has a "Forgiveness Eligibility Tool" which allows you to see if you're eligible for up to $10,000 or up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness.

Apply for debt cancellation before November 15th, 2022, because the moratorium on student debt payment will expire on December 31, 2022.

If you have applied before the deadline, the Education Department will continue processing your application even after December 31, 2022, as long as you apply before the November 15th, 2022 deadline. Do that and your debt will be cancelled within 4 to 6 weeks.

Furthermore, Biden's executive order introduced new rules on income-based repayment (meaning your ability to pay back your debt based on how much you make a year). Even if you don't get your $10k or $20k cancelled, your loan balance will no longer increase as long as you're still making payments. Just keep making your monthly payment and your debt balance will NOT increase, and for lower income workers who can't pay, even if your monthly payment is $0, your debt balance will still not increase.

What if you already paid off your debt during the moratorium but before the executive order?

You're in luck. If you paid off your student loan debt, you can be refunded for any federal student loan debt payments you made since the March 2020 moratorium. That means, since student loan debt was paused during the pandemic, and you still made your payments despite not being required to do so at the time, you will get your money back.

How do you ask for the refund? Contact your loan servicer, which is the company the Education Department assigned to handle the billing on your federal student loan. Once you contact your loan service, they're likely to ask you to give them information about the loan debt payments you made since March 2020 and the amount you want refunded. Once you make your request, you'll need to wait between six to twelve weeks before you get your money. For some people the wait can be from 90 to 120 days, because the refunds aren't automatic. The reason refunds aren't automatic is because loan servicers would need to process refund requests through the Education Department, which is essentially their boss.

If you're eligible for a refund, your payments can be refunded to you in the same way that you made them. If you made your debt payments electronically, your refunds can be sent to the same bank account that you used to make the original payments. The Department of Education also clarified that auto-debited payments are eligible to be refunded.

Private student loans aren't covered. This is strictly for federal student loan debt because the President and Education Secretary have no authority over private school debt.

Now, if you don't apply for forgiveness by Nov. 15, you will have more than a year to still apply until Dec. 31, 2023. But your loans will enter repayment before they are forgiven if you wait beyond Nov. 15. That means apply early so you don't have to worry about repaying debt after the deadline.

Biden declares understudy loan help for borrowers making under $125,000 following quite a while of extraordinary interior discussion

Biden declares understudy loan help for borrowers making under $125,000 following quite a while of extraordinary interior discussion

Biden declares understudy loan help for borrowers making under $125,000 following quite a while of extraordinary interior discussion President Joe Biden reported his arrangement for pardoning understudy obligations for certain borrowers Wednesday, which incorporates excusing $10,000 for borrowers who make under $125,000 each year and broadening the installment freeze one last time for the rest of…

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If I see anyone blaming Biden for student loan forgiveness being struck down I'm gonna lose my shit

Because if you think this is Biden's fault, you're a vapid fucking dumbass

The republicans have fought against loan forgiveness from the start

The republicans filed lawsuits against it

The republicans took it to scotus

And the republican controlled scotus is the one that struck it down

Biden did not have the power to just snap his fingers and make student debt go away, the office of the president is not a king

And don't you fucking dare say anything about "bIdEn CoUlD hAvE eXpAnDeD tHe CoUrT"

NO, HE FUCKING COULDN'T

THAT'S NOT HOW IT FUCKING WORKS

60 votes, the Democrats have 51

Biden and the Democrats are not to Blame here, it's the republicans, it's fucking always the republicans

Vote blue in 24, vote blue no matter what, every election

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #16

April 26-May 3 2024

President Biden announced $3 billion to help replace lead pipes in the drinking water system. Millions of Americans get their drinking water through lead pipes, which are toxic, no level of lead exposure is safe. This problem disproportionately affects people of color and low income communities. This first investment of a planned $15 billion will replace 1.7 million lead pipe lines. The Biden Administration plans to replace all lead pipes in the country by the end of the decade.

President Biden canceled the student debt of 317,000 former students of a fraudulent for-profit college system. The Art Institutes was a for-profit system of dozens of schools offering degrees in video-game design and other arts. After years of legal troubles around misleading students and falsifying data the last AI schools closed abruptly without warning in September last year. This adds to the $29 billion in debt for 1.7 borrowers who wee mislead and defrauded by their schools which the Biden Administration has done, and a total debt relief for 4.6 million borrowers so far under Biden.

President Biden expanded two California national monuments protecting thousands of acres of land. The two national monuments are the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, which are being expanded by 120,000 acres. The new protections cover lands of cultural and religious importance to a number of California based native communities. This expansion was first proposed by then Senator Kamala Harris in 2018 as part of a wide ranging plan to expand and protect public land in California. This expansion is part of the Administration's goals to protect, conserve, and restore at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The Department of Transportation announced new rules that will require car manufacturers to install automatic braking systems in new cars. Starting in 2029 all new cars will be required to have systems to detect pedestrians and automatically apply the breaks in an emergency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projects this new rule will save 360 lives every year and prevent at least 24,000 injuries annually.

The IRS announced plans to ramp up audits on the wealthiest Americans. The IRS plans on increasing its audit rate on taxpayers who make over $10 million a year. After decades of Republicans in Congress cutting IRS funding to protect wealthy tax cheats the Biden Administration passed $80 billion for tougher enforcement on the wealthy. The IRS has been able to collect just in one year $500 Million in undisputed but unpaid back taxes from wealthy households, and shows a rise of $31 billion from audits in the 2023 tax year. The IRS also announced its free direct file pilot program was a smashing success. The program allowed tax payers across 12 states to file directly for free with the IRS over the internet. The IRS announced that 140,000 tax payers were able to use it over their target of 100,000, they estimated it saved $5.6 million in tax prep fees, over 90% of users were happy with the webpage and reported it quicker and easier than companies like H&R Block. the IRS plans to bring direct file nationwide next year.

The Department of Interior announced plans for new off shore wind power. The two new sites, off the coast of Oregon and in the Gulf of Maine, would together generate 18 gigawatts of totally clean energy, enough to power 6 million homes.

The Biden Administration announced new rules to finally allow DACA recipients to be covered by Obamacare. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an Obama era policy that allows people brought to the United States as children without legal status to remain and to legally work. However for years DACA recipients have not been able to get health coverage through the Obamacare Health Care Marketplace. This rule change will bring health coverage to at least 100,000 uninsured people.

The Department of Health and Human Services finalized rules that require LGBTQ+ and Intersex minors in the foster care system be placed in supportive and affirming homes.

The Senate confirmed Georgia Alexakis to a life time federal judgeship in Illinois. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 194. For the first time in history the majority of a President's nominees to the federal bench have not been white men.

In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on student debt forgiveness in Biden v. Nebraska, it seems it might be useful to revisit why American students have so much student debt.

Ironically, it all dates back to Reagan's and the Republicans' decision to cut back on funding for public colleges and universities in order to avoid the possibility of having an "educated proletariat."

So it isn't surprising that is is Republicans who were opposed to any government debt forgiveness for student loans. THEY DON'T WANT TO HAVE EDUCATED CITIZENS. The poorly educated are much easier to manipulate and control.

In 1970, Ronald Reagan was running for reelection as governor of California. He had first won in 1966 with confrontational rhetoric toward the University of California public college system and executed confrontational policies when in office. In May 1970, Reagan had shut down all 28 UC and Cal State campuses in the midst of student protests against the Vietnam War and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. On October 29, less than a week before the election, his education adviser Roger A. Freeman spoke at a press conference to defend him. Freeman’s remarks were reported the next day in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Professor Sees Peril in Education.” According to the Chronicle article, Freeman said, “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].” “If not,” Freeman continued, “we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.”

So it looks like Sinema, having gotten her requisite pound of flesh for her billionaire hedge fund buddies (basically, they agreed to keep the carried-interest tax loophole and replace it with an excise tax on stock buybacks), has finally agreed to support the Inflation Reduction Act, otherwise known as the $740 billion "pretty much Build Back Better but we are calling it something different" bill that Manchin and Schumer came out with. If/when it passes, which could be as soon as this weekend, the Democrats will have achieved -- with a 50-50 Senate with two habitual Manchurian candidates, a four-seat House majority, a rampantly fascist opposing party, a Supreme Court openly bent on destroying democracy and personal liberty, and an active criminal investigation into the previous administration -- at least the following:

The American Rescue Plan, aka the first post-inauguration $1.9 trillion Covid relief package, which was the largest investment in the working class since the New Deal;

The bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is the first major structural and transportation modernization and systemic overhaul for the country since the 1970s;

The first significant gun safety legislation in 30 years and since at least the Clinton administration;

Multiple executive orders now signed on protecting abortion rights and access to reproductive care, including travel out of state if necessary;

A bill in the works to officially codify same-sex marriage and thus protect it from SCOTUS;

Reauthorization and improvement of the Violence Against Women Act, including strong new protections for LGBTQ+ and Native American victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault, including the ability for Native courts to prosecute non-Native offenders for sex crimes for the first time in history;

Finally (FINALLY) making lynching a federal hate crime;

The largest climate legislation ever passed in America (this bill), which also establishes a federal minimum 15% corporate tax rate and lowers healthcare costs, including for essential medications like insulin, by, like, a lot;

Passage of the PACT Act, aka expanding healthcare for disabled veterans exposed to burn pits, also the biggest expansion in this field for a generation despite Republicans briefly killing it in an outburst of pettiness;

Consistent big packages of support for Ukraine, rebuilding of foreign alliances, huge bipartisan support for including Sweden and Finland in NATO (hahahaha fuck you Josh Hawley);

The CHIPS act, which creates tech and manufacturing jobs in America and was made even sweeter by how thoroughly they fucked over McTurtle to do it (since oh boy does he deserve a taste of his own medicine);

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on SCOTUS, and not an awful white supremacist stand-in like Clarence Thomas, but a genuinely progressive and thoughtful jurist;

Cancellation of almost $6 billion in student loans for the poorest and most defrauded borrowers, such as those who attended scam for-profit "colleges";

And so on and so forth!!!

So like. Please tell me more about how the Democrats are incompetent, their leadership is bad, they are in Disarray TM, you are a terrible person if you support Biden or give them any credit at all, and you're just not excited to vote because they haven't done anything. Like yes! There is a lot more to do! Despite them suddenly deciding to play ball on this particular occasion, Manchin and Sinema still need to be made irrelevant as soon as possible! But as I said, this is happening with the thinnest of imaginable Congressional control, as the other party is literally trying to destroy democracy in real time before our faces. That is not irrelevant.

Also: ruby-red Kansas curb-stomped an attempt to outlaw abortion rights, and approximately 77% of the entire country supports this current bill. The generic Congressional ballots have all shown major movement toward Democrats, and frankly, I have a feeling that we have only just started to see the full impact of post-Roe fallout. So if you get off your asses, quit whining, and put the work in, we could actually win the midterms and then do EVEN MORE!

So yeah. Uh. Food for thought.

hey everyone beware there are now scams out try get your college loan forgiveness money

i just got a voicemail about the $10,000 i could get and friends, i was fortunate enough to never take out loans for college so i KNOW this call was pure stinkin' BS

while the application for student debt forgiveness is not online yet, please make sure when you do fill it out you do it at a .gov official address.

Here's a Q&A about the program with a link to sign up to be emailed when the application is available. You will note it's on a .gov address so it's the real deal.

https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief-announcement/

This is what being the greatest country on the planet actually means…. Not building bombs and weapons of war… Not huge tax breaks for billionaires… Not banning books… Not taking away women’s rights… Not returning to segregation… Not killing migrants at the border… Not canceling free school lunches… Not entwining religion and government… Not demonizing drag queens and trans kids… Not gutting social security & Medicare… The greatest country on the face of the earth prioritizes education !!