Welcome to the Anti-Debt Agenda
The average American works ten years of their life just to pay interest.
Americans are routinely forced into debt for education and medical care – which are paid for by taxes in many other nations. Credit cards are a very poor substitute for union cards.
Norwegians, Danes, Czechs, Germans, or Swedes do not need to borrow for college – it is free. The Germans and Dutch do not need to borrow for health care – everyone is insured, and deductibles cannot exceed a few hundred dollars.
As Astra Taylor says: “Working people in America are robbed twice. You’re underpaid at the job, and then you’re charged interest because you need student loans to get an education, and then you’re going into debt for medical care, and you may need other loans just to pay rent or put food on the table.”
Student debt, medical debt, and carceral debts (for bail, probation, and court costs) should not exist at all. These debts are the foundation of what Tressie McMillan Cottom calls “negative social insurance….. it doesn’t actually make us more secure. It only makes our collective insecurity more profitable.”
Our blog will not focus on consumer debts for homes, new cars or flat-screen TV’s. These debts may just reflect bad personal decisions. The existing bankruptcy laws are probably adequate remedies.
What we will oppose are the debts that arise from the lack of social insurance. The creditors here are clearly not entitled to full repayment with interest. We must expand the category of forgivable debts.
As Robert Meister asks regarding student debt: “Why not raise taxes and provide higher education as a publicly funded good that does not depend upon individual access to private credit markets?
“If you add up the lifetime debt service that former students will pay on $1 trillion, over and above the principal they borrow, you could run a very good public university system for what we are paying capital markets to fund an ever-worsening one.”
This blog will discuss and reprint articles on the size of the problem, along with proposed solutions.
Always feel free to provide comments, criticisms, and suggestions.
Recent Blog Posts
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The Republican Lust for Eugenics
For decades, the Republican Party has cast itself as a force for morality — the home of the “pro-life” movement and the representative of “Christian values.” However, in private, some Republicans seem more attracted to 21st-century eugenics — a movement designed to improve the white race by eliminating millions who are not white, not straight, not disabled, and not Christian. The Trump administration wants some of us to go away. The History of American Eugenics After World War I, eugenics was seen as a way to end the burden of caring for the sick and mentally ill. Eugenicists figured that…
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Senator Roger Marshall Sent Poor People to Jail
A New York Times investigation revealed that U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) sued more than 700 of his former patients over unpaid medical bills during his career as an obstetrician-gynecologist in Kansas. Some debts were as small as $101. Some of the patients Marshall sued were new mothers with outstanding medical bills from childbirth, while others faced debts related to pregnancy complications. Meischa Zimmerman said her $3,596 debt from an emergency Cesarean section grew to more than $7,000 with 18% interest. She said that she was arrested in front of her 2-year-old daughter after missing a court date. “I asked…
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Complaints of an Angry Student Debtor
Alan Collinge has been writing and organizing against student debt for several years. His blog is called Student Loan Justice, and his recent comments include: Concerns Over Federal Student Loan Policies “On Trump’s watch, it is obvious that we’ll go back to the ‘bad old days’ — where the Department will get back to disqualifying the overwhelming majority of borrowers out of the IDRs, and processing of loan cancellations will come to a grinding halt. Trump just injects more chaos into the fray by falsely claiming to be shutting down the Department of Education, or moving the administration of the…
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Elizabeth Warren Proposes New Bankruptcy Laws
Her proposed Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act would be a lifeline for struggling families — offering a better shot at financial recovery. The Act would put an end to predatory loopholes and slam the door on illegal debt collection practices. Most importantly, it would wipe out the unjust law that traps Americans under the crushing weight of student loan debt. The Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2025 proposes a new Chapter 10— that would replace Chapters 7 and 13 for consumer bankruptcies; The CBRA’s Chapter 10 is designed to protect more of a debtor’s income and assets, reducing the chances of…
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Reforming Our Small Claims Courts
People often imagine Small Claims courts as places where neighbors settle disputes about fences, kitchen renovation jobs, etc. This imaginary court is in the middle of Townsville, USA. Norman Rockwell presides, and you stop at the local diner after your case is resolved. But that view is often extremely inaccurate. Instead, as much as 85 percent of cases in many courts now consist of private companies suing to collect on consumer debts. The suing companies are often nationwide debt buyers, who pick up defaulted loans for pennies on the dollar. The companies expect that the defendants won’t show up for…
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A New Law Forgives Student Loan Interest
Student loans have been a painful problem for almost two decades. Thousands of borrowers have seen their lives profoundly damaged by student loan collections. All this suffering leads one to ask: Why should the government be making student loans in the first place? If the applicants are worthy — why not raise taxes and just give students the money? (like Pell Grants) Many other nations do this. A college grant of perhaps $10,000 a year would cover about 2/3 of the tuition at a decent vocational school. Twenty million recipients would cost the taxpayers just $200 billion a year –…
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‘Buy Now – Pay Later’ Programs Must Have More Protections
As rising costs continue to strain family finances, many Americans take out short-term loans to pay for routine expenses. These short term loans are marketed as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). More and more Americans are going into debt for groceries, when their rent is due, at the doctor or the vet’s office, or when the time comes to pay the electric bill. However: when borrowers miss a payment, they may be hit with enormous penalties and fees. Some lenders charge fees as high as 25 percent of the missed payment — turning a product marketed as “free” into a…
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‘White Christian Nationalism’ Why We Must Fight It
“White Christian Nationalism” is a homegrown, would-be theocracy. It detests democracy, human rights, women’s emancipation, empiricism….actually, most of the scientific and political advances of the last 150 years. Only “real” citizens (i.e. white Christian men) really matter to the pretend-theocracy. Strongman leaders are promoted as God’s defenders of the faith. Core Beliefs of White Christian Nationalism “White Christian Nationalism” — also called Dominionism, or Christian Reconstructionism– believes in the following tenets: (from Andrew Decort and Scott Leadingham): How White Nationalists View American History According to White Nationalists, America once was a godly country, which was blessed for its piety……but after…
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Bob Hertz’s Music Festival: Twenty Three of My Favorites
MOVIE SCORES…. 1. Cavatina….score of The Deer Hunter I remember sitting in the back row of a small movie house at the end of Deer Hunter, and crying my eyes out at this piece. It somehow evokes all the aspirations of each main character in the movie – and the terrible disappointments for each and every one of them. There were so many tragedies in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, we forget them so easily. 2. The Big Combo, title sequence by David Raskin For me this is a marvelous, unknown musical achievement…incredibly evocative. 3. Godfather theme, orchestral suite I…
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Coinsurance – Another Rip-off in Health Care
Let’s say that a health policy is advertised as follows: Fast forward — you have a serious illness, and wind up with a $40,000 hospital bill. You pay the first $7,000, which is your deductible…. then you pay coinsurance – 20% of the remaining $33,000, or $6,600….. finally, the insurer pays the remainder, which in this case is just $26,400. I call this a $13,600 effective deductible for hospital stays. The insurance company is doing fine….after all, they only had to pay out $26,400 on a $40,000 claim. The insured has paid $13,600 – and remember, that’s after forking…
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The Trump administration Will Be Tough on Student Loans
Here’s how…. 1. Opposition to Broad Forgiveness: The administration has stated that “Taxpayers—not students and parents—must not be forced to repay student loans that do not belong to them.” This administration is broadly opposed to presidential-level debt cancellation plans. 2. Ending Repayment Plans: The administration is moving to terminate certain existing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, such as the SAVE plans. The financial pain to borrowers will be massive. 3. Changes to PSLF: The administration will propose revisions to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which critics argue is intended to restrict eligibility. 4. Resumption of Involuntary Collections: The Department…
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Medical Debt Forgiveness is Beautiful – But Not a Cure-All
RIP Medical Debt has become prominent in the fight against health care debt burdens. Once the funders purchase these debts, their next step is always to cancel them. This should be a blessed event for the families who are currently in debt. However — are these efforts delivering on their promise? Not completely, according to the largest study to date of medical debt relief programs. Neale Mahoney at Stanford could find no evidence that buying and then forgiving medical debts improved the average beneficiaries’ finances, access to credit, or their physical or mental health. The beneficiaries were even less likely to…
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Predatory PayDay Loans Are Hard to Stop
There are 20 million payday and car title loans made each year…….and their “track record” is extremely ugly. Given this hideous record of undesired, undeniable consequences, numerous cities and states have tried to regulate the interest rates on these loans. In the face of such regulation, what did the payday loan industry do? In some cases, they secretly installed their loan business on Indian reservations, and went on doing business as usual under the name of the tribe. If anyone complained, the crafty lenders said that their practices were covered by tribal law. Each loan agreement explicitly stated (falsely) that…
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Can You Declare Bankruptcy From Student Loans?
Student loan debtors are very nervous about their new higher loan payments. If they cannot get “income-based repayment” — for whatever reason– the new payments may be economically back-breaking. I have had borrowers ask me if they could declare bankruptcy. Until a couple of years ago, my answer was that they would probably fail. In many cases, the Government would actually send in its own attorneys right away to challenge you. However, there has been a small improvement. Courts are now open to consider three situations that could produce a successful student loan bankruptcy. This is called the Brunner test….and …
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Payday Loans Can Be Made By Non-Profits
Payday loans nationwide are responsible for a large percentage of the really awful, disastrous, family-killing debts that trap low-income Americans. Payday lenders will gladly tell you about the problems they face, and the costs they have to cover. These loans are massively profitable, nonetheless, for everyone from multinationals to Indian tribes. Lenders blame their high costs on the fact that they lend without any credit check on the buyer. Even if they are scoundrels, this is a legitimate problem. Every year there are a small number of non-profits who try to make payday loans at modest interest rates. These good-hearted…
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Medical Debts Will Increase Under Republicans
Republicans generally don’t care about medical debt. They consider it their primary mission to lower federal spending. They count on Medicaid recipients being a pretty passive bunch — many do not vote at all, much less vote about health care programs. The Republican One Big Beautiful Bill Act would slash $1.1 trillion from Medicaid, the ACA, and other health care programs over 10 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 14.2 million people will lose their coverage due to those cuts. That number includes 6.5 million losing Medicaid, and 7.7 million losing ACA marketplace coverage. Families will lose…
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The Politics Of Student Loan Forgiveness
The issue of student loan forgiveness is really the province of the Democratic Party. An astonishing percentage of Republicans (at least astonishing to me) take the attitude of “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Republicans argue that taxpayers would bear the cost of defaults on federal loans. They also argue that it is unfair to those who have already struggled to repay their loans. The “burden on taxpayers” is their weakest point, given the stupendous deficit spending of both Trump administrations. If $50 billion or even $150 billion of student debt goes unpaid, this is small potatoes in the overall Republican…
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Book Review…..Debt’s Grip
This new book looks like a great one ……. Debt’s Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy by Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, and Deborah Thorne Debt’s Grip uses eleven years of court records and surveys to describe what it means to live in financial precarity in the United States. Bankruptcy filers describe the privations and struggles they suffered. It documents the increasingly lengthy period of time people sit in the financial “sweatbox” before filing bankruptcy. Several chapters are built around types of debts– home and car debts, medical debts, and credit card and other unsecured debts. An additional chapter discusses how the bankruptcy system both…
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Uncle Sam – The King Of Debtors
This blog has been active since 2022, and has covered many aspects of unjust personal debt, such as prisoners owing debt for child support, or veterans owing money for medical care actually received at the VA. My focus has always been on individual debt. I have not addressed the larger problem of public debt. Now it’s time to do that……. You don’t get any larger than the U.S. national debt — $36 trillion, and growing by $1 trillion every 3-4 months. When the national debt is this large, there is frankly no way to pay it off. Moreover, if interest…
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Chris Hedges On Debt And Exploitation
Chris Hedges – a former minister and foreign correspondent — has described himself as a socialist and anarchist. His interviews and blog posts are always stimulating. He points out: “Workers who are unable to meet their debts are far more likely to remain submissive and compliant. Debt peonage has always been a form of political control: 1. Native Americans, who were forced by the U.S. government onto tribal agencies, were required to buy their goods on credit at the agency stores. 2. Coal miners in southern West Virginia and Kentucky were paid in scrip by the coal companies — and kept in perpetual…
