Student loan debt

Biden could have used executive order1 or the Fed could buy up the debt2, to implement a plan that isn't limited and means tested3 4, instead of spending years acting like even the meager act he ended up passing (now held up in court)5 wouldn't be possible6. Now if I said the same thing about, say, healthcare instead of student loan relief, I realize there would be much more work to do (though a leader who genuinely cared would at least be campaigning/pushing for something like Medicare for all, popularizing the idea and calling out people in the way of getting something passed). But assuming such effort was clearly put in and obstructionism or w/e outside forces still got in the way, I would understand it was beyond the ability of the President to simply make it so.

In August, Biden announced a plan to cancel $10K-20K of student debt for debtors who earn less than $125K per year. But instead of automatically canceling debt for everyone, Biden forced people to apply for relief. In the two months between Biden’s announcement and the application roll-out, several  right-wing groups filed lawsuits, which now threaten to block the program altogether.

Biden STILL has the power to cancel student debt with the mere flick of a pen using an executive order* – despite right-wing attempts to block cancellation in the courts.7

*Find out more about this legal authority.1

Could the Fed wipe out all of America's student debt?

Backlinks

The following pages link to this page:

  1. The Law and Political Economy of a Student Debt Jubilee.pdf ↩↩

  2. Could the Fed wipe out all of America's student debt? ↩

  3. Biden's Student Loan Scam ↩

  4. No Half Measures, Cancel All Student Loan Debt ↩

  5. They used the promise of student debt cancellation to induce young voter turn out -- knowing it wasn't going anywhere bc they relied on faulty legal authority. ↩

  6. Student Debt Relief Was Never Supposed to Happen ↩

  7. https://debtcollective.org/what-we-do/campaigns/student-debt/flick-of-a-pen/ ↩