Biden to try to ignore student debt ruling

After the Supreme Court chucked Joe Biden’s student loan debt relief plan into the dustbin, some of you may have thought that our long national nightmare was over. It turns out that you would have been incorrect. Biden apparently no longer cares what the judicial branch has to say and wants things to be his way or the highway. And of course, he somehow immediately blamed Republicans for the SCOTUS decision. He almost immediately rolled out a backup plan intended to find a way around the court’s ruling using a rather dodgy interpretation of the Higher Education Act. He’s also slow-walking the restart of loan payments and preventing debtors from defaulting. So are we going to have to go to the courts to block this one as well? Perhaps. (Associated Press)

President Joe Biden is offering an alternative student debt plan designed to ease borrowers’ threat of default if they fall behind on their payments, after the Supreme Court struck down his original initiative.

Biden on Friday blamed Republican opposition for triggering the Supreme Court’s ruling and slammed the decision as wrong.

The president said he will work under the authority of the Higher Education Act to begin a new program that would begin loan repayment but remove the immediate threat of default. He said the plan would take longer but provide relief to millions of borrowers.

Biden’s handlers clearly must have known that the debt relief plan couldn’t pass muster in the court, so they had this backup scheme fully drawn up and ready to go as soon as the decision was announced. They also must have written his speech for him in advance as well. Before the day was out, they already had a statement up on the White House website where they once again blamed Republicans for the failure of his plan.

The White House even put out a “special statement” blaming Republicans. Before even offering any details of what options might be available under this new scheme, they wrote, “President Biden and Vice President Harris will not let Republican elected officials succeed in denying hardworking Americans the relief they need.” Cue the dramatic music.

Analysts are already expressing skepticism as to where the White House can find the authority under the Higher Education Act to empower the Secretary of Education to make these sorts of changes. And the new approach also does not appear to address the concerns raised by the majority on the Supreme Court. They didn’t say that student loan debt relief was impossible. They said that it couldn’t be done without gaining legislative approval from Congress. That massive, expensive scheme was simply too big of a lift to impose by the pen and the phone.

The specifics of the plan also seem vague at best. They’re saying some borrowers won’t have to make monthly payments. Others who do have to will qualify for a “discount” to save them money. And there will be an “on-ramp” for restarting payments so anyone who fails to pay won’t have those failures reported to credit agencies or be hit with any additional interest or fines. Did the lenders agree to any of this? Does this sound like any sort of “loan” that you’ve ever taken out?

Biden must really think this plot will give him some sort of electoral advantage, but he’s once again failing to read the room. Even as the plan was preparing to be shot down, a plurality of voters described it as being “a bad idea.” Unsurprisingly, the only group that broadly thought it was a good idea consisted of people with unpaid student loans. And I’m fairly sure most of the working-class people in the country know where this is heading. People with college degrees earn on average at least double what those without such a degree bring home. Biden is trying to take the debt legitimately incurred by those with the greatest potential to repay it and dump it on the shoulders of everyone else. And if any of you poorer folks have auto loans or mortgages to pay, you’d best get busy writing those checks because there will be no “debt relief” for you.