This brings the total under this administration to $167 Billion in relief for 4.75 million borrowers.
Centrists didn’t want him to relieve student debt. Pretended his hands were tied. Said that we shouldn’t try it on the grounds that it was an incomplete solution. Were content to abandon incrementalism entirely and let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Then Biden started forgiving student debt. Then the Supreme Court ruled in centrists’ favor. Biden could have announced that he tried and abandoned it forever with some vague insincere horseshit about the fight not being over. To Biden’s immense credit, he had a contingency plan ready to go. He has kept forgiving debt. It’s been the high point of his presidency. He did exactly what I hoped he would do on this issue and this issue alone. He listened to progressives and ignored centrists, and he persevered instead of immediately giving up forever when he encountered the first setback. He did what he could with the tools at his disposal instead of pretending they don’t exist.
I will not fault him on this. If only he acted this way about any other issue.
Centrists?
Most polling shows that student debt relief is highly popular, a boring centrist Democrat has been leading the charge for it, and centrist judges have been voting in favor of it.
It’s the extreme right that been pushing back against debt relief. The center of America wants it.
Centrists?
Yes. Centrists opposed it. I remember arguing with them about it. I listed some but not all of their arguments. Another one was that his hands were tied and he needed congress to pass it, with the standard addendum that progressives don’t know how anything works. I remember pointing out that Chuck Schumer was asking for the same forgiveness that progressives were, and asking if Schumer didn’t know how the Senate works. Yes, centrists opposed debt relief.
Biden listened to progressives. Biden persevered and didn’t make stupid excuses.
Now centrists see that it’s popular and want to take credit for progressive policy they opposed.
The broad fast debt relief that Biden wanted WOULD require Congress. That is a fact.
That said, the day the court struck down the broader plan, Biden announced he would be moving forward on slower tactical ways of working within other laws and programs that would be much harder to combat in court. Many were worried that this approach, sans new bipartisan legislation, would not cover as many people. That is likely true.
If someone was arguing with you that Biden could do nothing, then they clearly didn’t listen to Biden, because he gathered the press that afternoon and outlined a plan that he has been executing for the past 11 months.
Today, the Supreme Court sided with them. I believe the Court’s decision to strike down my student debt relief program was a mistake, was wrong.
I’m not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers what they need, particularly those at the bottom end of the economic scale. So, we need to find a new way. And we’re moving as fast as we can.
First, I’m announcing today a new path consistent with today’s ruling to provide student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible.
We will ground this new approach in a different law than my original plan, the so-called Higher Education Act. That — that will allow Secretary Cardona, who is with me today, to compromise, waive, or release loans under certain circumstances.
This new path is legally sound. It’s going to take longer, but, in my view, it’s the best path that remains to providing for as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.
I’ve directed my team to move as quickly as possible under the law. Just moments ago, Secretary Cardona took the first step to initially that — to initiate that new approach.
We’re not going to waste any time on this. We’re getting moving on it. It’s going to take longer, but we’re getting at it right away.
Second, we know what many borrowers will need to make their hard choices, which their — which their budgets are being strained now — when they start to repay their monthly loan payments this fall.
You know, we know that figuring out how to pay these added expenses can take time for borrowers, and they might miss payments at the front end as they get back into repayment.
Normally, this could lead some borrowers to fall into delinquency and default. But without their financial se- — it would hurt their financial security, and that’s not good for them or the economy. That’s why we’re creating a temporary, 12-month what we’re calling “on-ramp” repayment program.
Now, this is not the same as the student loan pause that’s been in effect for the past three years. Monthly payments will be due, bills will
notgo out, and interest will be accruing. And during this period, if you can pay your monthly bills, you should.
But if you cannot, if you miss payments, this “on-ramp” will temporarily remove the threat of default or having your credit harmed, which can hurt borrowers for years to come, because the Department of Education won’t refer borrowers. And the reason why that will work: They won’t refer borrowers who have missed payments to credit agencies for 12 months to give them a chance to get back up and running.
