Joe Biden has been under enormous pressure from his radical base to eliminate a trillion dollars in student loan debt “with the stroke of a pen.”
But Biden knows he would never get away with it. There would be lawsuits from here to Christmas. And he knows that forgiving that debt would put pressure on prices. So Biden is going to do the absolute minimum; he’s looking to issue an executive order that would forgive $10,000 in student loans for those whose income is less than $125,000.
Like most Biden proposals — from the American Rescue Act to Build Back Better — this satisfies no one. It’s not enough for the radicals who want a total wipe of student loan debt. And the more establishment Democrats fear the specter of any increase in inflation at all.
Some progressive leaders, sensing they’re not going to get all they want, are already gearing up to voice their disappointment, even if Biden goes with a final decision that would be higher than the $10,000 in forgiveness he promised to support during the 2020 campaign.
Some are still pushing for as much as $50,000 in relief, though few involved in discussions have ever believed that was possible. Instead, they’ve been pushing back against any income-level means test, arguing that could cut out thousands of deserving borrowers who either don’t receive the benefit because of government bureaucracy or who racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that they’re still buckling under despite higher salaries now.
Some of the discussions in the White House included the idea that the $10,000 in loan forgiveness should be announced at the same time that the president lifts the moratorium on repaying student debt. The latest extension for repaying will expire on August 31.
But there are still advocates for broader debt relief.
In conversations with Biden and top aides like White House chief of staff Ron Klain, Warren’s favorite statistics include stressing that only 2% of Harvard students graduate with debt but half do at the University of Delaware — which just happens to be the President’s alma mater and one of the schools he’ll be addressing this weekend.
She’ll point out that 91% of students at historically Black colleges and universities graduate with loans. She’ll point out how many people have student debt who never even finished enough courses to complete their degrees, and the disproportionate racial breakdown that, by her numbers, have just 6% of White borrowers still paying off loans after 20 years, compared to 96% of Black borrowers.
If Biden hasn’t realized by now that he’ll never do “enough” to satisfy the radicals, he’ll never see it. The job of the radicals is to never give up, and never surrender. Given a mile, they want a hundred miles. It’s the nature of radicalism and Biden has been clueless to this fact since he took office.
It will be his undoing in the end.
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