Dear members of Forgive Student Loan Debt:
As you're likely aware, this group began on January 29, 2009, the day I wrote the accompanying essay advocating for student loan forgiveness as a means of economic stimulus. At the time I wrote the piece, I was (and remain to this day) current on my student loans. While I may have used my own personal story to illustrate how student loan debt can snowball out of control, I never made the case that I am personally struggling to repay my student loans or that I even want or need to have them forgiven. Rather, I wrote the essay because I was annoyed that a mere 9 days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the exact same arguments we've been having for decades were continuing without any new information or any new ideas for how to stop the economy from completely spiraling out of control. By that time, over 4 months had passed since the near-collapse of the financial sector in September, 2008. We knew how deep the problem was and how difficult it would be to climb back out of the hole that affected ALL of us - from the CEOs to workers with 401(k)s.
