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.
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.
Schumer is the senate majority leader, he is the person who can bring things to a vote in the Senate.
And he knew that thanks to centrists, he didn’t have the votes.
AOC should have focused her lobbying on the chamber of Congress she is a member of to bring a vote on a bill.
Was it Pelosi or AOC who decided which bills come to the floor? I get that you want to blame AOC for centrists’ resounding success in blocking loan forgiveness, but it’s a stretch at best.
Biden is still trying and not giving up after the very first setback. It’s no wonder members of his own party are primarying him from his right.
