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Sanders to propose cancelling all $1.6 trillion of US student debt

Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses the crowd at a packed rally inside the gymnasium at Clinton College, a historically black college, before a rally in Rock Hill, SC on June, 22 2019. (AFP photo)

US Sen. Bernie Sanders will unveil a policy proposal that would eliminate all $1.6 trillion worth of American student debt.

The 2020 hopeful is set to announce the bill in the House on Monday together with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, The Washington Post reported.

The Democratic senator seeks to help 45 million Americans have their student debt, including all private and graduate school debt, wiped clean by the federal government.

Sanders also wants to make public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free.

According to the Post, a Wall Street tax, which would reportedly raise more than $2 trillion over a period of ten years, would pay for the bill.

“This is truly a revolutionary proposal,” said Sanders said in a statement, according to the Post. “In a generation hard hit by the Wall Street crash of 2008, it forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”

His plan, compared to those of other presidential contenders, notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), is more comprehensive.

Earlier this year, Warren submitted the first major policy plan that would cancel existing student loan debt for millions of Americans. Under her plan, $640 billion would be raised.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2016, losing out to Hillary Clinton, who in turn was defeated by Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

His 2016 campaign rejected the use of corporate money and instead relied on small-dollar donations.


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