Don't let the government steal from the disabled and elderly

From CREDO:

Social Security benefits are supposed to help senior citizens cover the costs of day-to-day expenses like food, clothing and shelter.

But more than 160,000 Social Security beneficiaries nationwide have their monthly checks garnished to pay off federal student loan debt, some of which is decades old.

Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison are currently leading a congressional effort to push the the Department of Education to stop garnishing Social Security benefits for student debt.

Sign the petition: Stop garnishing Social Security benefits for student loan debt.

Student debt in the United States is spiraling out of control. The total amount of student debt owed by Americans has increased nearly fivefold since 2003 alone, from $253 billion to a staggering $1.2 trillion. But we can’t solve our student debt crisis on the backs of senior citizens.

This isn’t how Social Security is supposed to work. When the program was created more than 80 years ago, banks and other creditors couldn’t take Social Security benefits away to pay off debts. The benefits were intended to be a guarantee that Americans could count on, with no strings attached.

But in 1996, Congress stripped this protection away by adding a loophole to the law allowing Social Security benefits to be garnished to pay debts owed to the federal government. Now, nearly 20 years later, more than 160,000 senior citizens are having their living expenses garnished to pay off federal student debt.

It’s long past time for the Department of Education to reverse course and place an immediate moratorium on garnishing our seniors’ Social Security benefits to pay for outstanding student loans.

Sign the petition: Stop garnishing Social Security benefits for student loan debt.

The greed and encroachment by this administration is just mind blowing. The faster we are rid of Obama the better.