(CNN) Sen. Bernie Sanders offered up a plan on Monday to completely eliminate the student loan debt of every American, staking out uncharted territory in the Democratic presidential primary.

The new legislation would cancel $1.6 trillion of student loan undergraduate and graduate debt for approximately 45 million people. His ambitious plan has no eligibility limitations and would be paid for with a new tax on Wall Street speculation.

The proposal goes further than the plan previously unveiled by his Democratic primary rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren . Her debt relief package was subject to income eligibility levels to determine how much relief the average person would receive -- parameters that Warren said were aimed at closing the racial wealth gap. Under the Sanders plan, if you have student debt of any kind it would be canceled the second the legislation is signed into law.

"This proposal completely eliminates student debt in this country and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation, the millennial generation, to a lifetime of debt for the crime of doing the right thing -- and that is going out and getting a higher education," Sanders, flanked by activists and supporters, said at a news conference in Washington on Monday.

Sanders introduced the legislation with Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will co-sponsor a pair of House bills that serve as companion legislation to Sanders' Senate plan, was also by his side for the announcement.

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