On student loans, why not challenge Repubicans?
The WSJ reports that President Biden is delaying his decision on student loan forgiveness:
President Biden is likely to decide later this summer whether to partially forgive student-loan debt for millions of borrowers, according to administration officials and others familiar with the matter, after the president said more than a month ago that he would weigh in on the issue in the next couple of weeks.
The officials said Mr. Biden is likely to announce his plans in July or August, closer to when the pandemic-related pause in federal student loan payments is scheduled to lapse, as the president and his senior advisers continue to weigh the political and economic fallout of any such move. The Biden administration earlier this year extended the pause, which has been in effect since March 2020, until Sept. 1.
Biden’s reluctance to act on this issue is understandable. The politics are unclear, and although policy reform is clearly needed it is far better to address the issue through legislation than executive action. Legislation can establish a sustainable, on-going program to provide financing for higher education and debt relief for struggling borrowers, and it will be much less vulnerable to reversal by the courts or the next administration. Legislation could also deal with important related issues, such as improving college graduation rates.
But given that Biden has decided to wait, why not ask Congress – and specifically Republicans – to address the issue through bipartisan legislation? Then he can acknowledge that whatever plan he ultimately chooses is imperfect, and blame Republicans for obstructing progress and forcing him to use executive action to address student debt problems.
I don’t think that messaging problems are at the heart of the Democrats’ short-term political struggles – the main problems are inflation and COVID, Republican obstructionism, and unrealistic expectations that the Democrats themselves encouraged. But given that Congress is evenly divided and hopelessly gridlocked, messaging is what they have, and it is critical to educate voters about the way our democracy works and the extremism of the Republican party.
Maybe Biden is paralyzed on student loans because he was in large measure instrumental in creating the problem and is finding it difficult to accept his own culpability. Thanks to the black community he has faced the error of his ways regarding mass incarceration. Maybe expecting him to have a similar epiphany regarding this aspect of his legacy is asking too much from a nearly 80 year old politician.
Kramer
why bit keep doing what he has already started doing: identifying cases of fraud or predatory lending and forgive the debt of the victims. case by case could add up.
Yllen apparently thinks forgiving loan would fuel inflation…giving people money, you know.
whereas taxing people with too much money…?
SW
yours is the kind of comment that poisons the well. what Biden did when he wasn’t 80 may have been unwise. maybe what he is doing now is unwise. but we do better by focusing on the current unwisdom and trying to fix that. name calling and permanent shaming don’t help. gets people’s backs up. dig in their feet.
Coberly:
Since the eighties, Biden has had his finger in every law dealing with the mitigation of student loan debt. Biden blocked any student loan debt relief saying it was being abused when it was not. In 2000 the bill he helped to sponsor which appeared again 2001, was vetoed by Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton asked then President Clinton to veto it. In 2001 as Senator Clinton she voted for it.
SW is telling the truth about Biden being “very” instrumental in blocking student loan relief.
As long as we are talking about now and not being eighty, I don’t mind evidence of pattern and practice. In any case, I am more inerested in fixing the problem than in blaming Brandon.
You sure you didn’t mean ‘braining Blamdon’?
I am old as well. The fact that I called him an 80 year old politician is not in itself disparaging. What I am saying is that someone who has spent the bulk of his long life in public service, would like to look back on that career with a certain level of pride. And that for anyone there are limits to how much of that past one is willing to repudiate. The mass incarceration mea culpa was a hard thing for him. Accepting his share of the responsibility for this mess may simply be beyond his capacity at this point in time. And personally evading that responsibility may require him to construct a view of its causes and potential remedies that don’t comport with the reality. TODAY.
typo watch:
why not, not why bit
Coberly:
Since the eighties, Biden has had his finger in every law dealing with the mitigation of student loan debt. Biden blocked any student loan debt relief saying it was being abused when it was not. In 2000 the bill he helped to sponsor which appeared again 2001, was vetoed by Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton asked then President Clinton to veto it. In 2001 as Senator Clinton she voted for it.
SW is telling the truth about Biden being “very” instrumental in blocking student loan relief.
Eric:
You really mean, why not entrap Republicans as they will oppose any student loan relief. “Then he can acknowledge that whatever plan he ultimately chooses is imperfect and blame Republicans for obstructing progress and forcing him to use executive action to address student debt problems.”
It makes sense to go down that path first and then decide.
What does not make sense is the small amount forgiven.
There are ~9 million people over the age of 51 who owe an average $44,000 or ~$380 million. If they had a loan rate of 2% and paid at $250 per month, it would take 17 years to pay off. No one has 2% loans and the likelihood of payoff is slim for most in this age category.
Can Biden fix this?
This person will never pay it all the same as those people over 50 will never finish paying. It is thought the young people are carrying all the debt. Not true, it is the people 35 and over holding most of the student loan debt. And many have to pay forbearance before one dollar of principal is paid.
Another thing, I do not understand why they use student loans of #1.7 trillion as revenue. Unless it is to hide deficit spending? I remember Bush taking Iraq off budget so the budget would look good.
Run
I do not understand: do they owe it to the US government or to the bank? or to the school?
Did you actually mean to say “queer studies” or is this some kind of typo?
EM
It did mean to say such and is a spammer.
In the context of performative moralism, then when it comes to Biden’s past congressional performance getting dragged in here then ” Cognitive dissonance, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the morning.”
Which is not to say that Ordinary Joe is a godsend for progressive politics, only that he is not Green Lantern or Congress, just a POTUS that will sign what we would like to see passed if he got the chance.
Just give everyone a voucher for gas worth $10,000 and let folks sell those back if the agree to apply it to their loans. Kind of joking, but millions are going to react badly if some relatively small portion of the country gets $10k as the pump their $6 gas. I’m sure the details seem terribly complicated as to why someone ends up with lots of debt after paying a lot for 15 years, but it is also kind of simple: ‘those guys got $10,000 towards their problems and I didn’t.’
If you could write, then there may have been a point in there, but I cannot tell for sure.