President Joe Biden is considering limiting his program to relieve student debt to Americans earning less than $125,000, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. Biden said last week he would soon take executive action to forgive some student debt. White House officials have previously said the plan would relieve at least $10,000 of debt per borrower, and that they expected the program would include income restrictions. Psaki offered $125,000 as a possible threshold in a briefing for reporters traveling with the president to a weapons plant in Alabama. The president has been prodded by progressives including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren to forgive at least $50,000 per borrower, but Biden has said he won’t relieve that much debt by executive action. He proposed eliminating $10,000 per borrower during his presidential campaign. The Biden administration has repeatedly extended a temporary freeze on student debt payments enacted shortly after the pandemic began in 2020. White House aides have said the president hoped Congress would take legislative action on student debt relief, and that his team has been divided on the merits of broad forgiveness. Read more.
In related news, Republicans are attacking Democrats and President Biden on the issue of student loan debt cancellation, linking the effort to inflation and calling it a transfer of wealth to elites, The Hill reported. It is an “absurd fiscal policy that will make inflation worse” and that shows Democrats have “prioritized the demands of the liberal elite” over working Americans, in the words of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). It is a “gross attack on hardworking Americans that did not attend college or saved to pay back their loans,” according to Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the ranking member on the House Budget Committee. He calls it a “bailout” to the wealthiest 20 percent of households that have “graduate degrees, six-figure incomes, and high lifetime earnings.” The White House, for its part, is hoping that executive action by Biden on federal student debt cancellations will rally its base to the polls at a time when polls show Democrats are deflated with what their leaders have achieved. Biden has come under steady pressure from liberal groups, the NAACP and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), among other voices, to take action to forgive student debt. Those voices say it is critical to give relief to people carrying excess debt, particularly minority and working-class Americans. Read more.
