VOA常速英语:民主党欲以“免除学生贷款”为竞选筹码

American college students can expect to spend years paying off student loans, but a bill introduced by Democratic lawmakers promises to relieve nearly 45 million graduates from a lifetime of debt. It is simply not acceptable that our younger generation through no fault of their own will have a lower standard of living than their parents. More debt, lower wages and less likelihood of owning their own homes. Sanders who is running for president teamed up with Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal to unveil the bill at a news conference Monday. Omar said the student debt crisis affects lower-income families far more than the wealthy. Canceling student debt is the problem of the poor and the middle class not of the rich, so rather than making exceptions, let’s end this crisis entirely once and for all. Omar said taxing Wall Street transactions would raise the needed money. So we can ask speculators on Wall Street to pay small financial transaction tax which would fully fund student loan forgiveness over ten years. The American people bailed out Wall Street. It’s time for Wall Street to bail out the American people.

Student debt has grown by almost two-and-a-half times over the past decade from six hundred billion dollars to 1.6 trillion according to representative Pramila Jayapal. 60 percent of white students across our country have student debt burdens, students of color even more. Eighty-seven percent of black students have to borrow to attend a four-year college, and African-American women who graduate with a college degree are paying about a hundred and eleven percent of their first-year salary in student loans. The new bill builds on legislation introduced in the last Congress, but with Republicans in control of the Senate, the propose measure has little chance of becoming law.
With Sahar Majid, this is Kathleen Struck VOA news Washington.