(PresidentialWire.com)- He’s been in office for just barely five months, and already President Joe Biden is reneging on one of his campaign promises.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is unlikely to be happy with the president’s latest statements that show he is not in support of providing forgiveness to student loans. He spoke to the New York Times recently and said:
“The idea that you go to Penn and you’re paying a total of 70,000 bucks a year and the public should pay for that? I don’t agree.”
On the campaign trail, Biden said he was in support of cancelling up to $10,000 in college student loans. Now, he’s going back on that promise.
Others in his party are already pouncing on this. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren both were pushing for student loan forgiveness up to $50,000. New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in that boat as well.
In response to a proposal from the two senators that would cancel $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower, Biden said: “I will not make that happen.”
The president explained he feels that money from the federal government would be better spent on early childhood education.
AOC jumped hard on that, responding on Twitter:
“The case against student loan forgiveness is looking shakier by the day. We’ve got the *Senate Majority Leader* on board to forgive $50k. Biden’s holding back, but many of the arguments again it just don’t hold water on close inspection. We can and should do it. Keep pushing!”
She continued:
“1. Who cares what school someone went to? Entire generations of working class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism. This is wrong.
“2. Nowhere does it say we must trade-off early childhood education for student loan forgiveness. We can have both.”
Biden’s apparent new stance on student loan forgiveness is a quick and dramatic change from just a few months ago. In March, for example, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters the president was “exploring options” for student loan debt cancellation. She said:
“The President continues to call on Congress to cancel $10,000 in debt for student loan borrowers. That’s something Congress could take an action on, and he’d be happy to sign.”
But, while two leaders in his party in the U.S. Senate have put forth a proposal to cancel student loan debt, it’s apparently too much for Biden to swallow.
According to Fox Business, cancelling all the student loan debt out there would help the wealthy. It would give out $192 billion in relief to the top 20% of all earners in America. At the same time, it would only give $29 billion to the bottom 20% of all American households.
Maybe that’s why Biden is re-thinking his position on student loan forgiveness. It would certainly go against what he’s trying to do in raising taxes on the wealthy.
Too bad for progressives.
