Free Republic

All honest people understand that the Democrats’ plan to pay off $10,000 in student loan debt for those earning less than $125,000 is incredibly corrupt. However, aside from the obvious vote buying, one reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, suggested to me that there’s a more nefarious purpose to all this. I thought he had a point, so I’m sharing it with you. The obvious problem with the plan is that facial corruption: Democrats are taking taxpayer money to buy votes. There are other problems I’m sure you’ve seen discussed elsewhere: This is a tax and Biden lacks constitutional authority...

An Australian bank has decided the future is electric and will stop approving personal loans for new petrol and diesel-powered cars from 2025 onwards. Electric vehicles (EVs) comprised a tiny two per cent of vehicles sold in Australia last year. That is a drop in the ocean compared to 17 per cent in Europe and 13.3 per cent in China, and with high starting prices coming in at $47,000 and a lack of charging stations Down Under, potential buyers still look for any alternatives to those on offer from major EV manufacturers.

When you’re an adult and look back on the places that you spent time in as a kid, chances are, they feel remarkably smaller than you remember. But 12 years later, that’s not the case with the San Francisco Art Institute, the gray monolith that now sits alone and empty in Russian Hill. The school, once famous for its maximalist Halloween parties and illustrious faculty, which included the likes of Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Mark Rothko, recently made headlines after it graduated its final class — marking the end of a 151-year saga as one of the oldest art...

As President Obama used to say of his clownish vice president: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up."Which brings us to Joe Biden's student loan debt forgiveness rollout, announced this week.Let's set aside the issue of the legality of the matter.The actual execution of the matter is Joe in Action.According to Axios:The implementation of President Biden's widespread, income-targeted student loan forgiveness is shaping up to be a bureaucratic challenge for the Department of Education.Why it matters: Millions of Americans are in limbo waiting for information on how to take action on student debt relief — the success of which...

Every day it gets harder to keep up with the accelerating lawlessness of the Biden Administration. The basic strategy is, just do whatever the left wants, using all the vast powers and resources of the federal government, and dare anyone to try to stop you. To mention just a few recent examples, one day it’s a multi-trillion-dollar transformation of the energy economy without Congressional authorization (perhaps slowed down by the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA); the next day it’s holding meetings to pressure tech giants like Twitter and Facebook to censor the speech of political opponents; next...

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg TV’s “Bloomberg Markets,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona responded to criticism of President Joe Biden’s student loan program that it’s not fair to people who paid back their loans by saying that “If something happened where my neighbor needs help to get back on their feet, me feeling that they shouldn’t get help, that’s un-American.” Bloomberg host and reporter David Westin asked, [relevant exchange begins around 9:45] “[D]o you have some sympathy for people who say, I paid back my loans and I didn’t get this kind of break. It’s not quite fair?”

On Wednesday, I pulled up my go-to news site for some midday procrastination. When I saw the headline about President Joe Biden announcing student-debt cancellation, I immediately texted my sister. After a flurry of messages about what we knew, she summed up what we were both feeling: This is literally life-changing. It wasn't an exaggeration. I graduated from an expensive private college 12 years ago, and I still pay hundreds of dollars each month in student loans. My sister learned a bit from my mistakes. She graduated from a community college last year with a career-focused associate's degree in healthcare....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans bearing heavy college debt loads welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden's announcement on Wednesday that he would forgive $10,000 in student loans, and some shared hopes they can jettison extra work hours and perhaps take a vacation or return to school. "I would not have second thoughts when planning a trip or going on a vacation," said John Paul, 49, a restaurant manager in Washington DC who said he took out loans for his son's tuition. "Earlier, it would be at the back of our mind that we have this debt hanging over us. Now we are...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is tying its authority to cancel student debt to the coronavirus pandemic and to a 2003 law aimed at providing help to members of the military. Legal challenges are expected. Skeptics of the administration’s ability to act on its own, without new legislation, had once included President Joe Biden himself and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But in a legal opinion released Wednesday, the Justice Department said that the HEROES Act of 2003 gives the administration “sweeping authority” to reduce or eliminate student debt during a national emergency, ”when significant actions with potentially far-reaching consequences...

An Australian bank announced this week that it will stop funding loans for new gas and diesel cars in 2025 to encourage the shift to electric vehicles. "We think that the responsible thing for us to do next, is to ensure that our vehicle lending doesn’t lock our customers in to higher carbon emissions and increasingly expensive running costs in the years ahead," Bank Australia Chief Impact Officer Sasha Courville said in a statement on Friday. "Ultimately, our announcement today is the beginning of a conversation with our customers and a signal to the wider market that if you’re considering...

The U.S. Department of Education is expected to lose close to $200 billion from federal student loans made over the last 25 years, due in part to pandemic-era relief pausing the bills for borrowers. Originally, the Education Department estimated these loans would generate around $114 billion in income; they will, however, actually cost the federal government $197 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog. A large share of the additional costs stem from the Covid pandemic-era pause on most federal student loan payments first enacted under the Trump administration and then continued by President Joe Biden. As...

The number of consumers with credit cards and personal loans reached record highs in the second quarter of 2022, driven by an increase in loans to subprime borrowers, according to the latest credit report from TransUnion.Delinquencies are also back near pre-pandemic levels.But as long as people have jobs, “I’m not seeing anything that I would really declare as a red flag,” TransUnion’s Michele Raneri said.

On Friday’s broadcast of ABC’s “The View,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) responded to a question on what she would say to people who worked to pay off their student loans who feel it would be unfair if other people will have their loans forgiven by stating that “about 40%” of people with loans don’t have degrees and the issue “is a question of fairness.”

Several non-profit organizations that distribute crack pipes as part of smoking kits received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Daily Caller analysis of loan filings found. The Daily Caller identified eight organizations that received PPP loans and distribute kits with pipe components or a fully assembled smoking device. Those organizations received more than $5 million in PPP loans during the pandemic, including two organizations that received more than $1 million each. The federal government distributed $800 billion in PPP loans during the pandemic, with the majority going to business owners, shareholders, creditors, and suppliers, according to...

When this story broke today that John Hynansky received a taxpayer funded $20 MILLION loan to build two luxury car dealerships and expand others in the Ukraine, Conservatives decried it and Media Matters bashed Conservatives. Media Matters says the loan by Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is not taxpayer funded. The truth is, it all depends on what the meaning of "self-funded" is. Photo: John Hynansky Hynansky is a close friend and contributor to Joe Biden's political adventurers as well as a contributor to Barack Obama, so a $20 MILLION loan with US taxpayer funding to be sent overseas, made a...

While the Biden administration has once again extended the pause on student loan repayments, some progressives have said that unless more is done, it could cost Democrats in the midterms in 2022. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is sounding the alarm over potentially losing voters and subsequent races if the campaign promise of canceling student loan debt goes unfulfilled by the Biden-Harris administration. Before the pause was extended, several prominent Democrats voiced their concerns about payments starting again and how it could cost them the midterms. Natalia Abrams, president of the Student Debt Crisis Center, a nonprofit focused...

The Biden administration announced Thursday it will automatically erase student loan debt for more than 300,000 Americans with severe disabilities that leave them unable to earn significant incomes. The move will wipe out more than $5.8 billion in debt, according to the Education Department, and it marks the start of a broader overhaul of a program that has been criticized for having overly burdensome rules. “We’ve heard loud and clear from borrowers with disabilities and advocates about the need for this change and we are excited to follow through on it,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. The...

The Biden administration on Friday issued what it says will be the final extension to a student loan moratorium that has allowed millions of Americans to put off debt payments during the pandemic. Under the action, payments on federal student loans will remain paused through Jan. 31, 2022. Interest rates will remain at 0% during that period, and debt collection efforts will be suspended. Those measures have been in place since early in the pandemic but were set to expire Sept. 30. In announcing the decision, President Joe Biden said the economy is recovering “at a record rate.” But he...

President Joe Biden has fired the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency after the Supreme Court handed him the power to do so on Wednesday. Director Mark Calabria's firing will be effective at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, the Washington Examiner has learned. Calabria, a staunch free-market advocate, was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the FHFA in 2019. The FHFA is the federal agency responsible for managing the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, also known as Freddie Mac, and the Federal National Mortgage Association, also known as Fannie Mae — meaning it has far-reaching power over mortgage markets....

When the Amerian Rescue Plan was passed, it included a provision setting aside $29 billion for farmers, restaurant owners and other businesses that were heavily impacted by the pandemic. The language of the bill raised eyebrows immediately because the grants and loan forgiveness being made available were to be prioritized for “socially disadvantaged” owners of such businesses. That provision became relevant to Adam Faust, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. Faust has two prosthetic legs but manages to operate his small farm with 70 dairy cows and a couple of hundred acres of feed crops for them. Keeping his business going during...