Government to Student Loan Borrowers: Time to Pay Up!
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Walter Smolarek and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss how student loan repayments have officials resumed after being frozen following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. With millions across the country feeling the weight of this crushing debt burden again, what will it take to win relief?
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Student loan repayments have officially resumed after being frozen following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. |
| 0:08.0 | With millions across the country feeling the weight of this crushing debt burden again, what will it take to win relief? |
| 0:16.0 | We need a new system. We need a new society. |
| 0:20.0 | We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. City. We are very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for a regular weekly segment where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working class, and the crimes of big business. |
| 1:02.7 | I'm Walter Smolerick, filling in for Brian Becker. |
| 1:05.1 | The Socialist Program brings new content several days a week thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com slash the socialist |
| 1:11.9 | program. We appreciate all of your support and encourage you to become a patron today if you |
| 1:16.9 | enjoy listening to the show. Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at |
| 1:22.3 | work and the author of many books. The latest being, The Sickness is is the system when capitalism fails to save us |
| 1:28.8 | from pandemics or itself. You can check out all of his work at R.D.Wolf.com. So, Professor Wolf, |
| 1:38.7 | student loan repayments officially resuming now after having been frozen for several years. |
| 1:45.4 | The deadline for repayments was extended numerous times. |
| 1:49.1 | There was a whole political drama that was ultimately resolved in a highly unjust fashion |
| 1:54.3 | in the Supreme Court around student debt relief. |
| 1:57.8 | All of that transpired. |
| 1:59.6 | And now here are debtors in this position where they have |
| 2:03.7 | well, well over a trillion dollars in debt. And the government is saying it's time to start |
| 2:08.9 | paying that back again. Yeah, it's an extraordinary moment in American history for two reasons. |
| 2:17.1 | Number one, we haven't seen this kind of a coordinated |
| 2:23.3 | campaign, literally by millions of students, to get relief from the debts that have accumulated |
| 2:32.6 | because they wanted to get an education. |
| 2:36.7 | And on the other hand, it's historic because it is such a rough, harsh decision by the Supreme |
... |
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