Although the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s signature student loan forgiveness program in late June, his administration has found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then.
The cancellations have come through existing federal student loan forgiveness programs, which are limited to specific categories of borrowers, such as public-sector workers, people defrauded by for-profit colleges, and borrowers who have paid for at least 20 years.
These programs are separate from the rejected forgiveness plan, which would have canceled about $430 billion of the $1.6 trillion of outstanding federal student loan debt all at one time.
The Biden administration has been granting student loan forgiveness through these existing programs on a rolling basis since coming into office and has discharged a total of $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million people to date.
I also like to brag about giving less than ten percent of what I promised.
What more can he do without Congress? He tried to act unilaterally through executive action and it didn’t work. He told the house and the senate, back when there was a (slim) Dem majority in both that he needed them to act and Schumer, AOC, and others kept publicly insisting he had the authority to act through executive action.
So blame the folks who failed to act when they might have had a chance to get it through Congress.
Schumer, AOC, and others kept publicly insisting he had the authority to act through executive action.
This looks like you’re blaming Schumer and AOC for suggesting that Biden use an executive order instead of the centrists that made sure that student loan forgiveness never saw a vote.
Schumer is the senate majority leader, he is the person who can bring things to a vote in the Senate. AOC should have focused her lobbying on the chamber of Congress she is a member of to bring a vote on a bill. Or even draft a bill for committee. Not just exhort the president to a course of action that was unlikely to proceed. I’m sure they did it either because they knew they didn’t have the votes, or to protect Dems in vulnerable seats. Either way, they shouldn’t have pushed their portion of the governments responsibility to the executive.
It’s 127 billion dollars more than any other president/administration has ever done.
3.6 million Americans and their families have had a significant burden removed, and that doesn’t even count the new repayment rules that limit the impact student loans borrowers.
He’s still moved the needle on a major pain point for millions of Americans. It warrants credit where it’s due. If you only criticism is that it wasn’t more, then write your representatives and vote accordingly.
I have. Sadly I’m in a deeply red area and my reps have made it clear that I can go fuck off.
Well then you should sympathize with having a conservative roadblock to democratic action.
