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President Joe Biden was told by those close to him that he should not cancel student loan debt but he was pushed into it by Vice President Kamala Harris and others, a new report claims.
On May 17, aboard Air Force One, the president was harangued by Senate Majority Leader and New York Sen. Charles Schumer to cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt, The New York Times reported.
During the flight in May, Mr. Schumer persisted, according to an account of the discussion he provided this week.
Over lunch, he appealed to the president’s emotions, describing a young woman who had approached him with tears in her eyes, saying the crushing burden of her loan payments made it difficult to live. The senator also sought to soothe the president’s fear that erasing some debt would be a boon for rich white students, telling him that “the vast majority are poor people and people of color.”
The report also said that “Vice President Kamala Harris was one of the most persistent promoters of canceling student debt.”
“During Valentine’s Day week, Ms. Harris had her staff members draft a memo listing the president’s concerns, along with talking points intended to address them one by one, an administration official said. On his concern that debt cancellation would benefit ‘private elite schools,’ they recommended in the memo that she counter by saying that ‘only 0.3 percent of federal loan borrowers attended Ivy League schools.’ In response to his worry that loans should be forgiven by an act of Congress, the memo urged her to say that similar executive authority was already being used to enact the loan payment pause,” the report said.
Among others who pressured him were Democrat Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Raphael Warnock.
But there were others advising the president against cancelling student loan debt.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen worried about such a giveaway when the nation is faced with crippling inflation and top Democrat economists agreed.
And the president’s wife, first lady Jill Biden, a college professor, was also concerned about forgiving the student debt.
But the Harris wing won and the president announced the cancellation of tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.
“Using the authority Congress granted the Department of Education, we will forgive $10,000 in outstanding federal student loans,” the president said this week.
“In addition, students who come from low-income families which allowed them to qualify to receive a Pell Grant will have their debt reduced $20,000.
“Both of these targeted actions are for families who need it the most — working and middle-class people hit especially hard during the pandemic making under $125,000 a year. You make more than that, you don’t qualify,” he said.
“No high-income individual or high-income household, on top of the 5 percent — in the top 5 percent of incomes, by the way, will benefit from this action. Period. In fact, about 90 percent of the eligible beneficiaries make under $75,000 a family.
“Here’s what that means: If you make under $125,000, you’ll get $10,000 knocked off your student debt. If you make under $125,000 a year and you received a Pell Grant, you’ll get an additional $10,000 knocked off that total for a total of $20,000 relief,” the president said.
“Ninety-five percent of the borrowers can benefit from these actions. That’s 43 million people.
“Of the 43 million, over 60 percent are Pell Grant recipients. That’s 27 million people who will get $20,000 in debt relief,” he said.
“Nearly 45 percent can have their student debt fully cancelled. That’s 20 million people who can start getting on with their lives,” he said.
He also announced one more, final, moratorium on student loan repayments until December 31st, 20
