Good Afternoon!
I'm glad to report that the petition is at 221,000 signatures. We should be able to get this up to a million. All it takes is a bit of effort from every who signed. We are asking you to PLEASE find 4 people you know with student loans, and get them to sign. This will immediately get us to one million.
Is cancelling student loans not worth at least this small amount of effort on your part?!
This is urgent folks. The President and Congress are coming up with new stimulus measures as we speak. An executive order such as what we are calling for will cost the taxpayers nothing (the loans were funded by the taxpayer years ago, and don't need to be paid for twice), and also will add nothing to the national debt. This is, by far, the best way to help the economy. It is the low-hanging fruit on the stimulus tree!
A million signatures will guarantee us good press coverage.
So you know:
There is another petition circulating which calls for limited loan cancellation through congressional legislation. This is a total non-starter. Their plan calls for raising taxes (which certainly will not happen), and then giving that money to the Department of Education (which is totally unnecessary), who will then be trusted to actually cancel loans (which history has shown they will not do), according to whatever sort of administrative process (ie means testing, applications, etc.) the Department of Education comes up with.
We have been working on this problem for 15 years, folks. And we saw the same crowd that is pushing this current legislation go to great lengths to kill the return of bankruptcy protections in favor of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which we now can say is a cruel joke for over 99% of the people trying for it.
To be blunt: the other "cancellation" plan is a JOKE. Frankly, it looks suspiciously like a bailout for the private lenders more than anything. private student loan companies would LOVE to unload their non-performing loans on the federal government for MORE-THAN-FULL-BOOK Value (which the legislation calls for).
The point is that if you REALLY want your loans cancelled, then the executive order we are calling for is really the best, and ONLY way that is actually going to happen. Please don't fall for the same trick again. It will only ensure the perpetuation of this unconstitutional, nationally threatening lending program!
This is the time for you to put some real effort into the petition. Beyond getting for other people to sign, do these things:
1. Boost it.
2. Retweet this
3. Post this link where many people will see it. Be bold, be creative, be clever!
This is truly YOUR battle to fight. No one is going to do it for you. If we have learned nothing else over the past 15 year, we have at least learned that! Is this not worth at least this much effort to you?
Let's make this happen. Everyone. Together...
Regards,