Can Biden Buy Votes with Student Debt Relief?

Townhall.com ^ | April 20, 2022 | Byron York

[Kaslin]

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary race was a bidding war in which the various candidates advocated spending trillions of dollars to enact sweeping progressive agendas. Some agendas were a bit more sweeping than others, but they all amounted to unprecedented increases in federal spending.

Take the issue of student loans. Bernie Sanders, the most progressive of the contenders, wanted to cancel all $1.6 trillion in student debt -- just throw out all student loans for 40-plus million Americans and somehow make Wall Street pay for it. Elizabeth Warren pledged to forgive everyone's student loans up to $50,000. And Joe Biden, the most cautious of the bunch, promised to "forgive a minimum of $10,000 per person of federal student loans."

But here's the thing: It didn't happen, and yet no American with student loan debt has had to make a payment -- any payment -- for more than two years. It is all in the name of COVID relief. And it is still going on.

It started in the Trump administration. When Congress passed the first COVID relief bill, in March 2020, it paused student loan payments until September of that year. Then-President Donald Trump extended the pause until Dec. 31, 2020. Then the Trump administration extended it again, through the end of January 2021, by which time Joe Biden would be president.

Since then, even as he touted the improving economy -- the job market is hot these days -- Biden has extended the loan repayment pause time after time. On April 6, a couple of weeks ago, he did it again. "If loan payments were to resume on schedule in May," Biden said in a statement, "analysis of recent data from the Federal Reserve suggests that millions of student loan borrowers would face significant economic hardship,

[jz638]

I’d be OK with reducing student loan debt by wiping the interest created during the payment moratorium and paying down principal through voluntary (but strongly encouraged) contributions from university endowments who made their money by setting tuition so high in the first place.

Nobody is talking about doing that though, they just want a genie wish to wipe away their debt and magically it has no side effects.

[DownInFlames]

When this happens, the freeloading students will get a greeting from the IRS requiring all excused debt is to be reported as income on their 1040s. Surprise, surprise, you now owe the federal and state governments thousands in taxes.

[Bishop_Malachi]

Last thing Americans want to hear when they can’t make ends meet because of dementia zhao and his policies, is everyone else getting relief from debt.

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I’d like to beleive you are right, but the US I knew 30-40 years ago doesn’t seem to be the US that I know today.

[Zathras]

I’m still trying to figure out how he can legally do it.
A loan is a legal contract.
Of course this has never stopped The Puppet Masters.

[Gaffer]

It is the same thing Obama did with his 4 rounds of quantitative easing back in his terms.

$85 billion a month of creating electronic scrip by ‘buying’ half of it in T-Bills (to legitimize the deficit) and half in Mortgage Backed Securities to placate the stock market. That was $1 Trillion a year.

It creates money (here, in electronic bit form) that inflates the supply (with no real value added such as increased GDP). It effectively devalues what supply was there to start.

I N F L A T I O N.

[nonliberal]

I went to college and still have outstanding student loan debt. I did what you are supposed to do. Worked hard, played the game (but had to cheat a little to get by sometimes) and sill paid bills. Student loans are a racket.

If Joseph Stolen wants to eliminate my student loan debt, great. I've paid enough in taxes and loans anyway.

[EEGator]

So $1.6 trillion in a day when we already have 10% inflation equals…

[Gaffer]

The long term effect of this would be that no commercial lender would ever touch another student loan again, IMO. The next logical vote getter solution from Democrats would then be the call for government lending (interim) and outright free education (long term).

[Gaffer]

Yep. Forgiven debt is INCOME.....

[Gaffer]

That’s why they always weasel word it. They go for the ‘delays’ and ‘deferments’. I think their lawyers have already told them they just don’t have the power to cancel that debt.

[z3n]

I went to college on grants/scholarships and loans and my own work. I worked full time summers and holidays, and part time during semesters. I also racked up some credit card debt, which is the very first thing I focused on paying off as soon as I graduated. I had my student loans paid off in less than two years. I made it a priority to get out of debt before I started making an plans for life purchases. I don’t expect anyone to reward me for being responsible about my personal finances. Solvency is supposed to be it’s own reward.

[Gaffer]

It’s hard to say, really. I think we’d be reminded of the Chicxulub impactor (dinosaur killer asteroid) once the finance industry and real taxpayers see the implications and results.

[rlmorel]

A lot of damage to America can be done with the "stroke of the pen".

As George Marshall once famously said when he plunged the American knife into the back of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Chinese Nationalists (in FULL SUPPORT by Marshall of the Chinese Communists, lest we forget):

"As Chief of Staff I armed 39 anti-Communist divisions, now with a stroke of the pen I disarm them."

You can probably tell, I am no fan of George Catlett Marshall.

[liberalh8ter]

He's 100% correct.

[chopperk]

A deadbeat President who forgives debt to deadbeat students has to be a winner if you’re a deadbeat voter.

[Tell It Right]

I predict the Dims won't do student loan payoff. They'll try to tease that out as long as they can to use it as a forever lure for votes instead of a one-time lure.

"We're trying to do student loan forgiveness, but the mean Republicans keep blocking it. Vote for more Democrats next time and we'll get it done for sure. This time we mean it."

[CodeToad]

You should stop posting large red text all the time. Your comments are no more important than anyone else’s.

[I want the USA back]

Practically every law the dems pass is to buy votes.

[Vermont Lt]

If a single person can wave a pen and inject $1.6 Trillion into the economy, without any “input” from Congress, that person should be arrested.

I doubt the majority of this nation are in favor of eliminating debt because it is difficult to pay back.

Should the system be changed? Absolutely. But that has to be a policy decision of the government, as a whole—not at the whim of a single person.

[Vermont Lt]

That would inject more liquidity into the system in a single day than the entire “American Recovery” bill has done in a year. Inflation would be 15-20% almost overnight.