Ocasio-Cortez Wants Debt Canceled Because ‘I Have Student Loans Too’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is on board with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) proposal to erase all student loan debt, because she has not paid off her student loans either, she said Monday.

While making remarks in support of Sanders’ sweeping bill to cancel $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, Ocasio-Cortez discussed her “personal stake” in the fight. She wants to make the bill a reality, in part, because she has outstanding student loans.

“I will be completely honest. I will disclose my personal stake in this fight because I have student loans too,” she said Monday. “And I think it’s so funny. A year ago, I was waiting tables in a restaurant.”

“It was literally easier for me to become the youngest woman in American history elected to Congress than it is to pay off my student loan debt,” she continued.

“So that should tell you everything about the state of our economy and the state of quality of life for working people,” she added.

She implied that her elevated position – becoming a congresswoman – put her in a better position to be able to access affordable health care and pay off her student loan debt, although it has still not been eradicated.

“I had to do something that was nearly impossible,” she said, adding that the bar is set too high and arguing that everyone should have easy access to education, health care, and other things that should be considered “human rights.”

In a follow-up tweet, Ocasio-Cortez took aim at the GOP’s tax cuts, which provided economic relief to roughly two-thirds of American taxpayers.

It is a less than ideal comparison, as the majority of Americans benefited from the cuts. Interestingly, a significant number of Americans are utterly unaware of that fact.

As Breitbart News reported:

Two-thirds of American taxpayers will pay less in taxes for their 2018 earnings, according to the independent Tax Policy Center. Eighty-one percent of the middle one-fifth of income earners received a tax cut. Just 5.5 percent of households got a tax hike of $100 or more—and most of those were in the upper-income tax brackets.

Yet far from celebrating their lower tax bills as they prepared to file for the April 15th deadline, many Americans remain convinced they got no tax cut at all—or even that their taxes went up. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in April showed that just 17 percent of Americans believe their taxes have been cut. A shocking 28 percent say they believe their taxes went up. Other surveys have consistently found that less than one-third of Americans think they got a tax cut.

Sanders’ College For All Act would cost the U.S. approximately $2 trillion. Proponents say it would be paid via increased taxes on Wall Street.

Despite the sweeping proposal, many questions are left unanswered. It remains unclear what will happen to those who have partially paid off student loan debts, nor is it clear if there will be a government reimbursement for individuals who have successfully paid their debt off. There are also minimum details on how colleges would transition to “tuition free” institutions. There are no details on who would take on the financial burden of college books and boarding, as well.