WASHINGTON — Shortly after the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness plan last month, he launched what he calls “Plan B” to bail out debt cancellation efforts.
But officials warn it could take months before the effort gets underway.
Biden, who campaigned in 2020 on the promise of reducing student-loan debt, asked voters heading into the 2024 presidential election why his efforts were rejected by the courts, and why he’s been rejected for a second time. You have to struggle to explain why you believe your attempts will stand up to similar legal judgments. scrutiny.
Democrats argue that a June 30 Conservative Court ruling nullifying Mr. Biden’s pandemic-era debt forgiveness plan will become a new issue that will rally supporters. Republicans say the plan, which would forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for most borrowers with incomes less than $125,000, is an overstatement of Biden’s executive power and should never be brought up to voters. I argue that it was not.
What you need to know
- President Joe BidenThe 2020 campaigner, who campaigned on a promise to reduce student loan debt, is now trying to explain to voters in the 2024 presidential election why his efforts were rejected by the Supreme Court. have to struggle.
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Biden stood up Alternate Plans to Rescue Debt Cancellation Efforts. Officials warn that it could take months before the effort gets underway.
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political analysts say Court rulings and student debt relief issues are likely to continue to stir up bipartisan debates heading into the election cycle.
Political analysts interviewed by Newsday said the court ruling and student-loan bailout issues are likely to continue to stir debate between the parties during the election.
“It works both ways,” said Hank Scheinkop, a Democratic campaign strategist. “Some will say, ‘Well, he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it right.'” And there will be Democrats and independents who say, “Wait a minute, the Supreme Court stepped in when it shouldn’t have, and undermined him.” And it was unfair and not right. And he was trying to do the right thing for young people. ”
“So there are two sides to this,” he added. “The question is, which one is more valuable?”
Biden’s ‘Plan B’ Explained
Biden, speaking at the White House following the court’s ruling in the Biden v. Nebraska lawsuit, promised to pursue “new avenues” to revive the debt cancellation plan.
The original plan was launched last August by an executive order to forgive individuals with annual incomes of less than $125,000 or households with combined incomes of less than $250,000 on $10,000 of federal student loan debt. Pell subsidy recipients would have been entitled to an additional $10,000 in loan forgiveness.
The Biden administration has used the COVID-19 pandemic to justify the president’s actions, which is a post-9/11 student high school that provides debt relief for Americans in wartime or in the military. He claimed that he would be subject to the Educational Relief and Opportunity Act (Heroes Act). About a national emergency.
Last September, state attorneys general for Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina said the plans were “not tailored to address the impact of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers. No,” he filed a federal lawsuit against the plan. As required by the HEROES Act.
“There is no law that would allow President Biden to unilaterally release millions of individuals from their obligation to pay loans that he voluntarily underwrote,” the states said in their complaint.
A conservative-majority court ruled 6 to 3, arguing that the regime had exceeded its authority under the HEROES Act. Chief Justice John Roberts said in an opinion written on behalf of the majority of the court that the legislation would not give Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona broad powers to write off student loan debt entirely. I wrote.
“The power to ‘amend’ statutes and regulations allows the Secretary to make minor adjustments and additions rather than change existing provisions,” Roberts wrote in his opinion.
Biden and Cardona have since announced that they would relaunch Biden’s debt plan through a decades-old provision of the Higher Education Act, a unilateral lawsuit that sets federal student-loan-related policies under the Higher Education Act. Claims that powers are vested in the Director General.
White House officials have acknowledged that the plan could take months to roll out.
Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the Biden administration’s National Economic Council, recently told reporters that enacting a debt cancellation plan under the Higher Education Act would require a more rigorous rule change process.
“The negotiated rule-making process is still driven by law, but is further complicated in that it requires public hearings with interactions with relevant stakeholders and the concerned public. It will take some time,” Ramamurti said.
With federal loan payments set to resume in October after a nearly three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Biden administration has launched two other near-term programs that are not expected to face legal troubles.
When payments resume on October 1, the federal government will not impose penalties, such as default or notice to credit reports, for 12 months for borrowers who fail to make their monthly payments. during that period.
The administration is also launching an income-based repayment plan called the Save for Precious Education (SAVE) Plan, which will reduce monthly payments on undergraduate loans to 5% of discretionary income from the current 10%. .
“We’re making sure we have a responsible plan in place to ensure that people aren’t asked to pay more than they can afford,” Cardona told reporters at a White House press conference after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
On Friday, the administration also announced it would forgive the debt of more than 800,000 borrowers eligible for loan forgiveness under a decades-long income-based repayment program that has long been plagued by reporting problems. Education ministry officials said they had been making payments for 20 to 25 years as required by the program, but some of those payments were “unaccounted for.”
political influence
Conservative lawmakers and groups have already pledged to challenge Mr. Biden’s attempt to use the Higher Education Act to bail out loans.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a legal brief preemptively filed with the Supreme Court in April that “the executive branch has no unrestricted decision-making power, nor is it exempt from student loan debt. I don’t even have an unlimited bank account to do so,” and requested that future issues be considered. Judgment in June. The so-called court brief was co-signed by 20 other Republican state attorneys general.
Democrats say Republican attempts to block Mr. Biden’s efforts on the issue will only attract supporters, but political analysts have found support for the plan in national polls over the past year. He said the issue is not so clear-cut, as support has been shown to be divided by partisanship. Democrats generally voted in favor and Republicans voted against.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released in April found that 47% of Americans supported Mr. Biden’s original debt forgiveness plan, while 41% did not. In a survey of 1,029 respondents, the margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
Christopher Malone, a professor of political science and vice president of Farmingdale State University, said the court’s ruling was “not a watershed issue at a critical juncture,” and said the issue was as much a concern among voters as the court’s ruling. He pointed out that it did not evoke strong emotions. Last year it ruled on abortion, but the ruling will still “permeate both sides’ narratives about what the election is about.”
“It’s going to be part of the story [Biden] In other words, “I stand with working Americans.” [Republicans] Stand on the disabled side. ’ Republicans will use this as another reason to vote against Biden because he just wants to give away free stuff. So it’s going to be built into the story, but it’s not going to be a very critical issue. ”
Scheinkopf said the court’s ruling is part of a series of conservative rulings unpopular with Democrats, including last year’s withdrawal of federal abortion protections and this year’s ruling on a decades-old rule. said he believed the ruling would help improve voter turnout for Democrats. Allow race-based admission at universities.
“This will add to the Democrats’ outrage over abortion, student loans, affirmative action, and anything else they think the Supreme Court will do to undermine liberalization of any kind. deaf,” Shainkoff said.
Shaincoff, who worked on former President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996, said the challenge for Biden was to use the court’s ruling to target young voters who are likely to have student loan debt. He said it was about gathering support. Polls show that the president is difficult to reach.
“The problem with young voters right now is that they’re not very excited about him,” Shainkoff said. “It has a lot to do with generational differences. Will he be perceived by younger voters as someone who stands for them? Yes. But whether it turns out is a bigger question.”
State Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, who also chairs the Nassau Democratic Committee, said he believes the issue will help mobilize younger voters.
“I think for the overwhelming number of young people, they’re pretty sensitive and they know who fought for them and who fought against them because it’s really obvious.” said Jacobs. “So we will try to revitalize the vote by alerting them and reminding them, but we are confident there will be no confusion when they go to vote in November 2024. I have.”
Republican election strategist Michael Dawiziak of Bohemia said the debt relief issue “is not a loser for the Republican Party,” and Republican officials have long said the plan takes into account those who choose to default. He pointed out that he had claimed that he had not. student loans. They also argue that Biden, a Washington political veteran, should have known the plan would face legal troubles.
“If you’ve never been to college and have a blue-collar job and are struggling to make ends meet, [for Democrats] It’s not a losing argument for Republicans to say to someone like that, ‘We’re going to use your tax dollars to pay someone’s debts who decided to go to college,'” Dawiziak said.
