President Joe Biden is leaning toward erasing $10,000 per borrower as the White House nears a decision on student loan forgiveness, a topic championed by leftists.
The government stresses that no final decision has been made, but various stories out on Friday suggested that Biden was considering making the news at a scheduled commencement speech this weekend.
‘No decisions have been made yet,’ assistant press secretary Vedant Patel told DailyMail.com, ‘but as a reminder, no one has been obliged to pay a single penny of student loans since the President entered office.’
Biden spoke at the Naval Academy on Friday but made no mention of student loans. He will speak at the University of Delaware, his alma mater, on Saturday.
The Washington Post reported the timing was changed in the wake of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children dead.
The loan forgiveness plan would apply to those who earned less than $150,000 in the previous year, or less than $300,000 for married couples filing jointly, the Post reported.
The executive order has been drafted and Biden is weighing whether or not to sign it, CNN reported.
Prominent liberals in the Democratic Party – including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – have been pressuring Biden to forgive student loans.
Ocasio-Cortez commented on the reports, saying $10,000 wasn’t enough.
‘$10k means tested forgiveness is just enough to anger the people against it *and* the people who need forgiveness the most. $10k relieves most the people who owe the least. What relief is there for the most desperate? For them, interest will undo that 10k fast. We can do better,’ she wrote on Twitter.
Republicans have blasted the idea, saying it wastes federal dollars.
According to a study by New York Federal Reserve economists, forgiving $10,000 per student would amount to $321 billion of federal student loans and eliminate the entire balance for 11.8 million borrowers, or 31 per cent.
‘Administration actions have already provided more than $18.5 billion in targeted debt relief to more than 750,000 borrowers. Not to mention tens of billions more saved by the 41 million borrowers who have benefited from the extended student loan payment pause,’ Patel noted.
Loan payments have been on hold since March 2020, a move made during the coronavirus pandemic.
The issue could come into play during the midterm election.
Canceling student loans is a popular issue among young voters.
But Biden has seemed reluctant to unilaterally cancel college debt owned by the U.S. government, a move that would test his legal authority and could be subject to lawsuit.
Instead, Biden has asked Congress to pass a bill forgiving debt that he could sign.
In April, Biden said he was ‘considering dealing with some debt reduction.’
‘I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction, but I’m in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness and I’ll have an answer on that in the next couple of weeks,’ he said on April 28.