Friday, May 11, 2007

Wretched of the Earth Now Include Student Debtors

Student loan debtors now have less rights that persons who have fallen out of favor with the Internal Revenue Service. Our society has certainly come to naught when this kind of behavior is sanctioned by our own government. Actually, its much more than sanctioned, it was part of the 1997 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Provisions in that act made it much easier for the government to collect on defaulted loans and also made them harder to discharge in bankruptcy. A Wall Street Journal article explains the crushing effect of this legislation on students on defaulted loans. These provisions were put into place at the behest of John Boehner, Howard "Buck" Mckeon (pictured), and Senator Mike Enzi according to Student Loan Justice and Sally Mae and many debt collectors have reaped the benefit. Fortunately, the light of the media has exposed the symbiotic relationship between these newfangled robber barons and their corporate Repug enablers. Hopefully the astonishing greed of these lending institutions and the injustice visited about the hapless debtors who stumble into their web will be exposed next.

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