It’s important to understand precisely why SCOTUS struck down Biden’s plan A. The Biden administration initially used the HEROES Act of 2003 to administer relief, which allows the Department of Education to “waive or modify” federal debt for debtors impacted by a national emergency. Their claim was that the COVID-19 pandemic was that kind of emergency and provided justification for mass debt relief. Seven weeks passed between the announcement of the plan and the launch of a website allowing people to apply for relief. Unfortunately, this gave conservatives ample time to file lawsuits, two of which eventually ended up before the High Court. In a 6-3 decision, conservative Supreme Court justices denied relief for millions of working-class borrowers.
This time, Biden is pursuing relief through the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965, which allows the US secretary of education to “compromise, wave, or release” federal student debts. Borrowers and government officials spent months in a regulatory process called negotiated rulemaking, which determines the regulatory boundaries of the HEA. And their plan does propose some legitimate steps, like canceling student debt for borrowers who enrolled in low-financial-value programs. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough. For debt relief to work, it has to be broad-scale and automatic.
My fellow organizers at the Debt Collective, the nation’s first union of debtors, have made it easy for Biden to churn out real relief by creating a Student Debt Release Tool. The tool helps borrowers petition the Department of Education to use its legal authority under the HEA to discharge all federal student debt. So far, more than 44,000 borrowers have filled out the tool. The president and his team could use all of this data to move swiftly, perhaps even as fast as the government moved to wipe out $790 billion in the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses during the height of COVID (75% of which benefitted the richest 20% of American households).
Biden still has the power to deliver a massive domestic policy win. With high prices for basic items, skyrocketing rents, and wars raging, Americans young and old desperately need something to be hopeful about. When leaders in Washington deliver on promises in ways that help working-class people, they should absolutely message that to voters because it’s good for democracy and a reminder that change is possible. Sadly, Biden’s habit of positioning crumbs of student debt relief as an accomplishment only stirs up cognitive dissonance for those in the electorate who have high student debt balances and bills they can’t afford. There’s still time for Biden to fully utilize the tools at his disposal to deliver meaningful relief. Now, that would be something worth bragging about.
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