In December, President Joe Biden extended the Trump administration’s moratorium on student debt collection. As of now, the Biden administration has paused the debt collection until May, and it’s not charging interest.
Plus, Biden has forgiven a staggering $16 billion in student loans as of last month, according calculations by Forbes and statements by the Education Department.
But $16 billion isn’t good enough for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. — and she warned that if Biden doesn’t start paying off all her and others’ debt, he’ll lose far-left votes.
“It is Biden’s power and ability to cancel student debt — and nobody else’s,” she told Inside City Hall on Thursday.
She went on to blame student debt for Biden’s low polling.
“This is about a collapse in support among young people — among the Democratic base — feeling like they worked overtime to get this president elected and they aren’t necessarily being seen,” she said.
She told Yahoo Finance earlier this month, “I cannot understate the danger and the risk — economically, politically, and just where we are right now as a country — of allowing the moratorium on student loan payments to lapse in May.”
Take a look —
"It is Biden's power and ability to cancel student debt and nobody else's."
In an exclusive, in-depth interview, @AOC tells @ErrolLouis missteps and broken campaign promises are causing the collapse in support from the president's base.
Tonight at 7 p.m. on @InsideCityHall. pic.twitter.com/TIGlFysliQ
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) March 24, 2022
Biden has, in fact, been polling very poorly with young people. In January, he was hovering at a measly 42 percent approval among Americans under 30, a CBS News survey found.
For reference, he won 60 percent of voters under 30, according to a CBS News exit poll from the election. He was sitting at 70 percent approval among young people in February 2021.
In other words, he’s seen a 28-point decline in his approval rating among this cohort.
However, Ocasio-Cortez provided no evidence linking this decline to Biden’s refusal to prioritize loan forgiveness.
Plus, there is one additional problem — It’s likely unconstitutional for the president to forgive student debt. If Biden issued an executive order to forgive all of it, then the order might be delayed — or struck down — by the courts.
Banks in the private sector issue some student loans. The federal Education Department issues others, and the president enjoys wider discretion over the Education Department’s lending practices.
So far, Biden has pursued targeted forgiveness instead of universal forgiveness. He’s been taking advantage of the Education Department’s Borrower Defense Program, a service first established by former President Barack Obama.
Under this program, Biden has forgiven debt for victims of fraud. He’s also forgiven loans for the permanently disabled, and he’s discharged the loans in cases of bankruptcy.
That’s not good enough for the far-left. They want the government to forgive the debt they agreed to… Or else.
The Horn editorial team