Hey there. Tool checking in from AOC’s district in NYC. I’m just your average run of the mill mixed race Puerto Rican, goth, cashew, socialist that is going to restate the primary reason why Joe Biden has no business being anywhere near the levers of economic power again.
Over the last few days we have seen a lot of attention paid to Joe Biden’s behavior with women and how he engages in casual power exchanges in various settings. The justifications offered for his behavior range from “product of his times”, “he acts this way with everyone”, & “he was part of the Obama era & therefore good”. I find each one of these justifications to be lacking and his anemic acknowledgement of his treatment of Anita Hill came off as self serving along with a pompous assertion of white male privilege when he assumed Stacey Abrams would share a ticket with him (without asking first).
Beyond the horrible outcomes from having the most intellectually lazy but prolific in writing garbage opinions Clarence Thomas on the SCOTUS — Joe Biden was one of the primary reasons why
(Millennials)
&
(Gen Xers)
&
(now Gen Z)
can not discharge medical debt or student loan debt through bankruptcy.
business.time.com/...
Changing the nation’s bankruptcy code wouldn’t just give the group of lawyers more work, it would offer an option for students to get rid of debt that, at its core, is not really any different from other types of debt that the government does allow borrowers to discharge. “It’s kind of strange that credit cards are dischargeable when private student loans aren’t,” said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the financial aid websites, Fastweb.com and FinAid.org. “They should be treated the same.”
They used to be. Before 1976, all education loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy. That year, the bankruptcy code was altered so loans made by the government or a non-profit college or university could not be discharged during the first five years of repayment. They could, however, be discharged if they had been in repayment for five years or if the borrower experienced “undue hardship.” Then, the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984 made it so all private student loans were excepted from discharge too.
Two decades of further tweaks to the bankruptcy code ensued until 2005, when Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which made it so that no student loan — federal or private — could be discharged in bankruptcy unless the borrower can prove repaying the loan would cause “undue hardship,” a condition that is incredibly difficult to demonstrate unless the person has a severe disability. That essentially lumps student loan debt in with child support and criminal fines — other types of debt that can’t be discharged.
Bold by diarist.
Joe Biden was one of the principal people who oversaw the debt peonage of three generations of people.
The current level of student debt is over 1.5 trillion dollars.
The majority of debt held is by women.
To argue that Joe Biden is a “friend to women” because he has the ability to externalize a demeanor of good will in a social setting ignores that his objective votes, and lobbying have had an undue influence on the state of our economic woes of millions upon millions of U.S citizens.
In fact several of our declared candidates were against the Bankruptcy Act and fought against it for years. One in particular led that fight in a very meaningful manner. It would be a joy for her to win the nomination.
Age is also not a criteria in which to solely judge a candidate. Merely because two men are white and old does not preclude that they have had the same lived experience nor championed the same causes over the course of their lives. Where you were matters.
I’m with Warren on this one:
www.motherjones.com/…
Warren first began publicly taking on Biden in 2002, when she wrote a paper for the Harvard Women’s Law Journal suggesting that his position on bankruptcy had been effectively bought.
“His energetic work on behalf of the credit card companies has earned him the affection of the banking industry and protected him from any well-funded challengers for his Senate seat,” she wrote. With a touch of snark, she added, “This important part of Senator Biden’s legislative work also appears to be missing from his Web site and publicity releases.”
And in a New York Times op-ed that year she called the bankruptcy bill “unconscionable,” singling out Biden for his work on it. “Apparently many politicians believe they can remove the last safety net for families facing financial disaster (many of which are led by women) so long as they can find another highly visible issue that lets them proclaim their support for women,” she wrote.
She took on Biden again in The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke, the best-selling 2003 book she co-authored with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi. “Women’s issues are not just about childbearing or domestic violence,” they wrote. “More women with children will search for a bankruptcy lawyer than will seek subsidized day care. And in a statistic with special significance for Senator Biden, more women will be victimized by predatory lenders than will seek protection from an abusive husband or boyfriend.
We can personally like Joe Biden and think he has served his country with distinction.
We should not disqualify the lived experiences and opinions of others who have not shared that same experience due to economic disenfranchisement, lack of mortgage relief, and student debt peonage. I’d rather Joe Biden stay retired and reflect on some of the very real consequences his actions.
If I am looking for a candidate in these times — it kinda matters that they were right in the past and ignored — rather than being right and screwing over millions of people with over a trillions dollars in debt and no way to actually discharge it.
That’s just me. I only speak for myself.
