{"id":1359615,"date":"2022-03-05T07:32:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-05T12:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1359615"},"modified":"2022-03-05T07:38:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T12:38:05","slug":"aoc-who-bought-a-tesla-complains-about-her-17k-in-student-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aoc-who-bought-a-tesla-complains-about-her-17k-in-student-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"AOC, Who Bought a Tesla, Complains About Her \u201c$17k+\u201d in Student Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Faoc-who-bought-a-tesla-complains-about-her-17k-in-student-debt%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1359615&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/social_media_share\/public\/2022-03\/aoc%20rich.jpg?h=1389ae57&#038;itok=CiaczmHS\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has often spotlighted her own student loans since entering Congress, personalizing a hot-button issue to decry a system that saddles millions of people with debt coming out of school.<\/p>\n<p>However, unlike most Americans struggling to pay off student loans, Ocasio-Cortez, 32, has spent her money lavishly and appears to be in a position to pay off her full debt at any time, according to a review of her student loan history.<\/p>\n<p>As of 2020, Ocasio-Cortez owed between $15,001 and $50,000 in federal student loans, according to her most recent personal financial disclosure <a href=\"https:\/\/disclosures-clerk.house.gov\/public_disc\/financial-pdfs\/2020\/10043223.pdf\">report<\/a>, which was filed in August 2021.<\/p>\n<p>That debt was incurred from August 2007 to May 2011. Student loans are often paid off under a 10-year plan. In December, however, Ocasio-Cortez <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepAOC\/status\/1466799577844137990\">said<\/a> she had &#8220;over $17,000&#8221; in student loan debt.<\/p>\n<p>Two years earlier, in September 2019, Ocasio-Cortez made a student loan payment during a congressional hearing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I literally made a student loan payment while I was sitting here at this chair,&#8221; she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7kArVucMtkg\">said<\/a>. &#8220;I looked at my balance, and it is $20,237.16. And I just made a payment that took me down to $19,000, so I feel really accomplished right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s statements are true, then she paid off less than $2,000 of her student loans between September 2019 and December 2021.<\/p>\n<p>During that time, Ocasio-Cortez <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/socialist-tesla-whole-foods\/\">reportedly<\/a> bought a Tesla with a retail price of up to $59,000 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2021\/09\/14\/aoc-met-gala-tax-rich-dress\/\">attended<\/a> the Met Gala in New York City, where the cost of a seat started at $35,000 and tables went for $200,000 to $300,000.<\/p>\n<p>She also spent a good deal of money on rent for those two-plus years. Indeed, the 32-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/aoc-downplays-luxury-apartment-says-everyone-should-have-one\/\">lives<\/a> in a luxury high-rise apartment building in Washington, D.C. where monthly rents range from at least $2,000 for a studio apartment to more than $5,000 for a three-bedroom.<\/p>\n<p>Amenities for the complex include saunas, several pools, multiple gyms, racquetball courts, massage rooms, a golf simulator, and a rooftop dog park, among others.<\/p>\n<p>The congresswoman also has a <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2019\/02\/24\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-confirms-she-moved-to-new-bronx-apartment\/\">second residence<\/a> in her home district in New York City.<\/p>\n<p>As a member of Congress, Ocasio-Cortez makes $174,000 a year \u2014 about two-and-a-half times the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/2021\/demo\/p60-273.html\">median income<\/a> for U.S. households. However, she still hasn&#8217;t paid off her student loan balance, despite her salary, a 0% interest rate, and now <a href=\"https:\/\/studentloanhero.com\/student-loan-debt-statistics\/\">owing<\/a> much less than the <a href=\"https:\/\/ticas.org\/affordability-2\/student-aid\/student-debt-student-aid\/student-debt-and-the-class-of-2019\/\">nearly $30,000<\/a> (exact figures vary depending on the source) that the average graduate owes.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unclear why. Ocasio-Cortez didn&#8217;t respond to a request for comment for this story. Just the News asked her office several questions, including whether she&#8217;s on a payment plan for her student loans and why she hasn&#8217;t paid off her debt given her apparent ability to do so.<\/p>\n<p>While not speaking to Just the News, Ocasio-Cortez has been quite vocal about her own student loan debt. Since first being elected, she&#8217;s often <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/06\/25\/aoc-it-was-easier-to-get-elected-than-to-pay-off-my-student-loans.html\">cited<\/a> it, portraying herself as a struggling young woman waiting tables to make ends meet, with student loans making the struggle unwinnable.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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,&#8221; the congresswoman said in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m 32 years old now,\u201d she added in December on the House floor. &#8220;I have over $17,000 in student loan debt, and I didn&#8217;t go to graduate school because I knew that getting another degree would drown me in debt that I would never be able to surpass. This is unacceptable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of members of Congress have student loans, not just Ocasio-Cortez, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollcall.com\/news\/politics\/one-tenth-of-congress-lists-student-loan-liabilities\">according<\/a> to Roll Call.<\/p>\n<p>Ocasio-Cortez and several other Democrats have been pushing President Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in debt per borrower through executive action. Currently, some 43 million Americans owe roughly $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.<\/p>\n<p>Biden has expressed skepticism about having the legal authority to take such a step, although he campaigned to cancel up to $10,000 of student debt per borrower. Last year he asked the Department of Education to prepare a memo on his ability to do so up to $50,000. In January, dozens of lawmakers demanded the memo&#8217;s release in unredacted form, to no avail.<\/p>\n<p>Ocasio-Cortez has argued canceling student loan debt would help the working class.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do we really think a billionaire&#8217;s child is taking out student loans?&#8221; she asked in December. &#8220;If you are taking on student loan debt, it&#8217;s because you are likely a middle or working-class person. Let&#8217;s get real, let&#8217;s cancel it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Analysts have found that, despite Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s claims, canceling student debt would actually benefit the affluent.<\/p>\n<p>One <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/top-20-gets-6x-more-benefits-from-student-debt-cancellation-than-bottom-20-new-study-finds\/\">study<\/a> concluded that canceling all student loan debt would give the top 20% of income earners six times more benefit than the bottom 20% of income earners.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Urban Institute, the wealthiest quarter of the population holds more than one-third of all education debt, while the lowest earning quarter holds only 12%.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Debt forgiveness plans would be regressive \u2014 providing the largest monetary benefits to those with the highest incomes,&#8221; the institute <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urban.org\/urban-wire\/which-households-hold-most-student-debt\">wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Brookings Institution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/up-front\/2019\/04\/24\/how-progressive-is-senator-elizabeth-warrens-loan-forgiveness-proposal\/\">found<\/a> similar results.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Ocasio-Cortez has been advocating the cancellation of at least billions of dollars in student loan debt, slamming President Biden in recent weeks for his approach to the issue.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday night, Ocasio-Cortez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10569179\/AOC-blasts-Biden-lost-opportunity-State-Union-address-glossing-key-issues.html\">called out<\/a> Biden for not addressing student loan debt in his State of the Union address, describing the speech as a &#8220;lost opportunity&#8221; in which he &#8220;glossed over&#8221; key issues.<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks earlier, Ocasio-Cortez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/the-new-yorker-interview\/is-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-an-insider-now?utm_source=twitter&#038;utm_medium=social&#038;utm_campaign=onsite-share&#038;utm_brand=the-new-yorker&#038;utm_social-type=earned\">warned<\/a> Biden must do more to cancel student loan debt for Democrats to have &#8220;any chance&#8221; of keeping their congressional majority in November&#8217;s midterm elections.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration has touted that it has discharged around $15 billion in student debt to more than 675,000 borrowers. In December, Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/select\/president-biden-pauses-student-loan-payments-until-may-1\/\">extended<\/a> the federal student loan repayment moratorium, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, until May 1. The White House hasn&#8217;t said whether Biden will extend it again.<\/p>\n<p>Critics have argued that student loan cancellation presents a potential conflict for lawmakers who stand to gain from having their debt obligations forgiven or reduced. In January, the New York Post <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/01\/29\/the-squad-want-student-loans-forgiven-including-theirs\/\">reported<\/a> that, beyond Ocasio-Cortez, several other Democratic lawmakers pushing to cancel student loans have such debt themselves.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It definitely seems like a conflict of interest to me,&#8221; attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who currently serves as chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association, told the Post. &#8220;Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is single, has no children, and is earning almost $200,000 in salary and benefits. She should be setting an example for her constituents and paying down her debts.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has often spotlighted her own student loans since entering Congress, personalizing a hot-button issue to decry a system that saddles millions of people with debt coming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1359615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}