When the Biden administration announced its debt relief plan in late August, the timing was fitting. According to the Hebrew calendar, this last year, which ended on September 25, was the Shemitah year, a year where debts are forgiven. In the Bible, canceling debt is just one among a set of jubilee laws, which includes freeing the enslaved, feeding the poor, paying fair wages, and conserving and protecting overworked land. As a biblical scholar and pastor, I am often struck by the moral logic that undergirds these laws. Indeed, many ancient societies understood jubilee to be not only a compassionate…
Debt
Mitch McConnell’s Condemnation of Debt Relief Is Dripping With Hypocrisy
Often in this society, when a scam is exposed, one must peel it layer by layer like an onion to reveal the stinky green, tear-inducing nubbin at the core. This week’s lesson in “How We Get Screwed Everywhere We Turn” finds us confronting the sticky wicket of student loan debt, and the problem some people have with the idea that other people might get something that helps them. This is the deal as I have always been given to understand it: If you can, you excel at school. You nail the grades and the extracurriculars, assembling a dossier of achievement…
Nursing Homes Are Suing the Friends and Family of Residents to Collect Debts
Rochester, N.Y. — Lucille Brooks was stunned when she picked up the phone before Christmas two years ago and learned a nursing home was suing her. “I thought this was crazy,” recalled Brooks, 74, a retiree who lives with her husband in a modest home in the Rochester suburbs. Brooks’ brother had been a resident of the nursing home. But she had no control over his money or authority to make decisions for him. She wondered how she could be on the hook for his nearly $8,000 bill. Brooks would learn she wasn’t alone. Pursuing unpaid bills, nursing homes across…
AOC Calls for Student Loan Cancellation as Biden Is Expected to Extend Freeze
President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday that his administration is once again going to extend the student loan payment pause, which is currently set to expire in May. According to administration officials, Biden will only extend the pause for three months. The new expiration date would be August 31. Though the action received limited praise from lawmakers, it’s far from what debt advocates and Democrats and progressives in Congress have been demanding. Last week, nearly 100 Democrats sent a letter to Biden urging him to extend the payment pause through at least the end of the year,…