1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

I am a physician who trained at Temple University, and like many in my generation, I have taken out a "mortgage on my mind" to serve my community. As of a decade ago, I was already over $255,000 in debt. I have lived and worked in Philadelphia and Camden, often in poverty-stricken inner cities, with the expectation that the government would honor its end of the bargain regarding student loan programs.The current situation regarding the IDR backlog and PSLF buyback issues is, quite frankly, a mess of the Department of Education’s own making. It is galling that as a professional who has dedicated years to the public interest, I must now watch as the administrative bureaucracy fails to perform its job with the due diligence it should. I've requested buyback, 4 months ago, and based on the news, the Department of Education is intentionally slow walking PSLF buyback, with an average time of >2 years, and less processed than they receive. This is incomprehensibly evil. If I chose to do the same with my taxes, I'd be in jail. Tell Linda McMahon that if she cannot clear this backlong in 2 months, you'll hold her in jail, and I'm sure the applications will be processed with alacrity. When I travel or work, I am often reminded that my education and place as a citizen seem to outweigh nothing when the system chooses to be opaque and unresponsive. My generation has been told time and again that we are the future, yet we are met with economic obstacles that make our financial futures tenuous. It is impossible to make any sort of financial plans when the "rules of the game" are changed or ignored with the stroke of a pen. I expect you to hold the Department of Education responsible for this failure. We cannot have a transparent or functioning democracy when the citizenry cannot know or rely upon the rules by which an agency operates. If you cannot ensure that this process is above reproach and that these backlogs are cleared immediately, then you have lost my faith in your leadership and, ultimately, you have lost my vote.