Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 9-2-22

Political
Biden Speaks About 'The Continued Battle For The Soul Of The Nation'
Biden’s Big New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan, Explained
President Joe Biden trav- eled to Philadelphia on Thursday for a primetime speech on "the continued battle for the soul of the nation" in front of Independence Hall, the White House said Mon- day.
The speech come a week after the President returned to the cam- paign trail with a fiery speech in which he offered one of his sharpest rebukes of Republicans who have stuck to the credo of his predecessor, labeling it "semi-fas- cism" and predicting it has gone too far for most of the country. NBC News was first to report on the Philadelphia speech.
In that speech last week, Biden test-ran the message he is ex- pected to tout aggressively for De- mocrats this fall. It also showed how his attacks on Trump, and Republicans who have remained
MICHELLE OBAMA
loyal to him, have grown distinctly sharper as November's midterm elections approach.
"What we're seeing now is ei- ther the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philos- ophy," Biden told a group of Democratic donors at a private home in Maryland ahead of the rally.
"It's not just Trump," he went on, "it's the entire philosophy that underpins the -- I'm going to say something: It's like semi-fascism." In a speech in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, Biden will also drive home a familiar criticism he has leveled at Trump and those around him: that they cannot pre- tend to support law enforcement while threatening the FBI and supporting those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a sen- ior administration.
President Joe Biden an- nounced his administration’s long-awaited student loan for- giveness plan Wednesday, saying it will forgive $10,000 in student loans for borrowers who earned less than $125,000 during the pandemic. People who received Pell Grants, grants to low-income students, while they were en- rolled in college will be eligible to have $20,000 in debt forgiven.
The move will be enough to wipe out some student debt en- tirely: 15 million of the 43 million people with federal loans owe less than $10,000, and those bor- rowers are typically the most likely to fail to pay back their loans. In all, the plan will elimi- nate student debt for about 20 million people, according to an analysis provided by the Educa- tion Department, and decrease monthly payments by an average of $250 for borrowers with a re- maining balance who are on standard 10-year payment plans.
The Committee for a Respon- sible Federal Budget, an anti- deficit group, came up with a price tag of $230 billion for a less generous version of the program that did not include the addi- tional aid for Pell Grant recipi- ents.
Here’s what we know about the policy and how it would work.
I have student loans. What does the announcement mean for me?
If you have a federal “Direct Loan” — the most common type of student loan — issued before June 30, 2022, you will be able to apply to have your outstanding balance reduced. All direct loans are eligible, including loans to parents and graduate students.
If you qualify and your bal- ance is less than $10,000, the loan will be retired; if you re- ceived a Pell Grant while enrolled in college, the amount that can be forgiven goes up to $20,000.
Only people who earned less than $125,000 as an individual or $250,000 as part of a married couple in 2020 or 2021 will be el- igible for forgiveness.
The Education Department said in a press release Wednes- day that 8 million borrowers may be able to qualify automatically because the Education Depart- ment already has information about their income. That still means the majority of people will have to apply. The application is not yet available, but the depart- ment said it will be made public before the end of the year.
If you aren’t eligible for for- giveness, or if it pays off only part of your loan balance, loan pay- ments will resume in January 2023.
Judge Blocks Gov. Desantis’ Stop Woke Act Calling It Unconstitutional
A Florida judge blocked Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Stop WOKE Act, which restricts race-based conver- sation, analysis, and education, calling it unconstitutional.
NBC News reports U. S. District Judge Mark Walker deter- mined the Stop WOKE Act violates the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process law. Walker also denied a stay that would have kept the act in effect during an appeal.
“Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down,” Walker wrote in his 44- page ruling.
“Normally, the First Amend- ment bars the state from burden- ing speech, while private actors may burden speech freely,” the Obama-appointed judge contin- ued.
“But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars pri- vate actors from burdening speech, while the state may bur- den speech freely.”
According to The Hill, DeSan- tis’ bill, which he signed into law earlier this year, prevents employ-
ees from attending any activity vi- olating one of eight concepts, in- cluding that someone bears “personal responsibility” for past atrocities because of their race, sex, gender, or nationality.
Republicans in the state touted the bill as a way to fight against “wokeness,” diversity efforts, and critical race theory, the idea that racism is systemic in U. S. institu- tions.
PAGE 6-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2022