I'm out of my depth here; if I'm wrong I would love to be educated.

My assumption is that the debt holders would be the ones losing. I don't know about you, but I don't hold any person's medical or education debt. In my estimation, these are ultimately all held by the rich and powerful fat cats- owners of banks, etc.

The vast majority of student loan debt in the US is owned by the federal government. The "fat cats" who will be stuck holding the bag are the taxpayers.

Thanks. I just looked and yup, 92 of student loans are owned by the government. That seems.... very bad for all sorts of reasons.

It's solely U.S. government. Any discussed debt cancellation never included private loans. And if it did, the U.S. government would pay off the holder of the private loan, not just cancel the debt.

No. We all end up paying, because the student loan debt they are talking about cancelling is ultimately held by the federal government.

We'd be taking things from the bucket of "the people who borrowed have to pay it back" and putting it into the bucket of "we all have to pay it back through increased taxes."

What if the deal for debt cancellation was a 5% tax increase for those whose debt was cancelled for the remainder of their lives? Whenever you calculate tax, forgiven debtors pay 5% more.

Indirectly from taxes. However the context here / the premise of the article is that the one off payment is worth it in exchange for long-term boost in the economy and freeing people from obligations holding them back.