There are so many problems with student loan forgiveness that even liberal partisans are distancing themselves from it.
SO WHAT
When Democrats have lost The Washington Post, they’re in scary, uncharted territory.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
After President Biden announced his plan to cancel at least $300 billion of student debt on Wednesday, liberal politicians, economists and pundits took to social media to criticize the move as unnecessary, unfair, and inflationary.
1. “SIX-FIGURE EARNERS.” Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat running for the Senate in Ohio, noted that Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan is a giveaway to more affluent college-educated Americans paid for, in part, by the working class.
2. “RECKLESS.” Jason Furman, former director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, warned that student loan forgiveness will make inflation even worse.
3. “INCREASES INFLATION.” Furman’s warning about inflation was echoed by another top Democratic economist, former Obama Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who also noted the plan’s unfairness to people who didn’t attend college.
4. “NOT HOW YOU TREAT BLACK VOTERS.” NAACP president Derrick Johnson noted that debt forgiveness disproportionately benefits white Americans, who are more likely to attend college and more likely to graduate with a degree than their black peers.
5. “REGRESSIVE, EXPENSIVE MISTAKE.” Even reliable liberal boosters like The Washington Post noted the plan’s obvious unfairness to lower income Americans who didn’t go to college.
6. “NEVER SUPPORTED CANCELING STUDENT DEBT.” Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., made sure his constituents knew he opposed any plan to shift the cost of student loans to ordinary Americans, and suggested some less drastic alternatives.
7. “NO WAY TO MAKE POLICY.” Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., noted that Biden’s plan will add to the deficit and also criticized the White House for doing an end run around Congress.
8. “NOT THE BEST USE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS.” In addition to echoing concerns about unfairness and the risk of inflation, Washington Post opinion contributor and CNN commentator Catherine Rampell highlighted the fact that the cost will be born by American taxpayers.
THE KICKER
President Biden probably doesn’t have the constitutional power to issue debt relief in the first place, according to a number of legal experts, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Biden himself in previous statements.
- “People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not,” Pelosi explained in July 2021. “He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”
- Before taking office president-elect Biden expressed doubt that the president can cancel student debts, saying, “It’s arguable that the president may have the executive power to forgive up to $50,000 in student debt. Well, I think that’s pretty questionable. I’m unsure of that. I’d be unlikely to do that.”
- The lack of constitutional basis means the plan is unlikely to withstand legal challenges, according to a private memo by President Obama’s former top education lawyer, Charlie Rose, who wrote, “If the issue is litigated, the more persuasive analyses tend to support the conclusion that the Executive Branch likely does not have the unilateral authority to engage in mass student debt cancelation.”