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Biden administration officials are quietly planning for the possibility that the Supreme Court could strike down President Biden’s sweeping student loan forgiveness program, the Wall Street Journal reported. The high court is expected to issue a decision this month on the plan to eliminate up to $20,000 in federal student debt for millions of borrowers. During oral arguments in February, the court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical that federal law allows the education secretary to wipe an estimated $430 billion in loans from the government’s books. While White House officials maintain publicly they are confident the Supreme Court will uphold the program, some in the administration have expressed concerns in private that the conservative majority will kill it. Administration officials have been discussing policy options that could help the tens of millions of borrowers who are at risk of not getting the loan forgiveness that Biden promised. If the court blocks the program, the Biden administration is unlikely to respond with a new plan to cancel student debt on a large scale using a different legal authority. Though some policy officials in the administration have analyzed alternative legal routes to massive debt cancellation, such a plan, if pursued, likely wouldn’t take shape for many months. Meanwhile, administration officials are discussing more targeted policy options, as well as measures aimed at helping borrowers who will soon be required to resume making payments on their loans for the first time in more than three years after payments were suspended due to the pandemic. Their goal is to be prepared to respond to the potential blocking of the program with an explanation of the other ways the administration is trying to assist borrowers. Biden hasn’t yet signed off on a post-Supreme Court-decision strategy.

Total consumer credit rose $23 billion in April, up from a revised $22.8 billion gain in the prior month, the Federal Reserve said yesterday, MarketWatch.com reported. That translates into a 5.71% annual rate, up from a revised 5.69% gain in the prior month. It is the fastest pace of credit growth since November. Revolving credit, like credit cards, rose 13.2% in April, down slightly from a 14.6% gain in the prior month. Nonrevolving credit, typically auto and student loans, rose 3.2%, up from a 3.2% growth rate in the prior month. This category of credit is much less volatile. The Fed’s data does not include mortgage lending, which is the largest category of household debt.

Lawmakers plan to re-up proposed legislation that would give merchants the power to process many Visa and Mastercard credit cards over different networks, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new bill is expected to be introduced as soon as this week with two additional co-sponsors, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). A nearly identical bill was introduced last summer by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). That bill was referred to the Senate Banking Committee but didn’t get voted on. Vance, who joined the Senate this year, is a junior member of the committee. Currently, when a consumer pays with a credit card that has Visa or Mastercard listed on it, merchants generally have to route the payment through that network. The bill would mandate that merchants in many cases have the right to route payments through an unaffiliated network. That could lower the fees that merchants have to pay. Visa and Mastercard set and pocket network fees that merchants pay when consumers shop with the cards. They also set interchange fees that merchants pay to the banks that issue credit cards.

A joint resolution to block President Joe Biden's student loan relief proposal cleared the Senate Thursday, but that's likely the end of legislative efforts to scrap the initiative, Roll Call reported. That's because the White House has said Biden will veto the measure, which cleared the Senate by a vote of 52 to 46. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, along with independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, supported the measure, as did every Republican. The resolution passed the House last week, but neither vote drew enough support to override a veto. Despite the legislative wrangling, the ultimate test for the proposal is whether it survives challenges before the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in February. Justices are expected to issue a ruling before the end of June.

Americans’ income and spending both rose in April, a sign of economic resilience amid rising prices and warnings of a possible recession, the New York Times reported. Consumer spending increased 0.8 percent in April, the Commerce Department said Friday. The uptick followed a two-month slowdown in spending and exceeded forecasters’ expectations, as Americans shelled out for cars, restaurant meals, movie tickets and other goods and services. After-tax income rose 0.4 percent, fueled by a strong job market that continues to push up wages and bring more people into the work force. Data from the Labor Department this month showed that Americans in their prime working years were employed in April at the highest rate in more than two decades. Separate data released by the Commerce Department on Friday showed that a key measure of business investment also picked up in April, a sign that corporate executives aren’t expecting a major slump in demand in coming months. Consumers’ resilience is a mixed blessing for officials at the Federal Reserve, who worry that robust spending is contributing to inflation, but who also don’t want it to slow so rapidly that the economy falls into a recession. The gradual slowdown in spending seen in recent months is broadly consistent with the “soft landing” scenario that policymakers are aiming for, but they have been wary of declaring victory too soon — a concern that April’s data, which showed persistent inflation alongside stronger spending, could underscore.

America’s credit card balance has passed $1 trillion, or it’s about to, depending on whom you ask, The Hill reported. The nation’s credit card debt stands at $986 billion, according to the Federal Reserve. The figure has climbed by $250 billion in two years. Some other estimates range higher. A WalletHub report put total card debt at $1.2 trillion at the end of 2022. Just two years ago, the national credit card narrative seemed headed in the opposite direction. Card balances declined from about $850 billion at the start of 2020 to less than $750 billion in the spring of 2021. A typical American household now carries $10,000 in credit card debt, by one estimate, another record. Forty-six percent of cardholders carry debt from month to month, up from 39 percent a year ago, Bankrate reports.