Biden-Harris Administration Announces Additional $7.7 Billion in Approved Student Debt Relief for 160,000 Borrowees
Biden-Harris Administration Announces Additional $7.7 Billion in Approved Student Debt Relief for 160,000 Borrowees
This brings the total under this administration to $167 Billion in relief for 4.75 million borrowers.
Centrists didn't want him to relieve student debt. Pretended his hands were tied. Said that we shouldn't try it on the grounds that it was an incomplete solution. Were content to abandon incrementalism entirely and let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Then Biden started forgiving student debt. Then the Supreme Court ruled in centrists' favor. Biden could have announced that he tried and abandoned it forever with some vague insincere horseshit about the fight not being over. To Biden's immense credit, he had a contingency plan ready to go. He has kept forgiving debt. It's been the high point of his presidency. He did exactly what I hoped he would do on this issue and this issue alone. He listened to progressives and ignored centrists, and he persevered instead of immediately giving up forever when he encountered the first setback. He did what he could with the tools at his disposal instead of pretending they don't exist.
I will not fault him on this. If only he acted this way about any other issue.
Centrists?
Most polling shows that student debt relief is highly popular, a boring centrist Democrat has been leading the charge for it, and centrist judges have been voting in favor of it.
It’s the extreme right that been pushing back against debt relief. The center of America wants it.
Yes. Centrists opposed it. I remember arguing with them about it. I listed some but not all of their arguments. Another one was that his hands were tied and he needed congress to pass it, with the standard addendum that progressives don't know how anything works. I remember pointing out that Chuck Schumer was asking for the same forgiveness that progressives were, and asking if Schumer didn't know how the Senate works. Yes, centrists opposed debt relief.
Biden listened to progressives. Biden persevered and didn't make stupid excuses.
Now centrists see that it's popular and want to take credit for progressive policy they opposed.