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Democrats in the House and Senate are planning to present a resolution on Thursday, asking President Biden to use executive action to remove $ 50,000 of the federal student loan debt – although Biden’s response to such demand remains dubious.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York will hold a news conference on Thursday morning to announce the initiative alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Who has been vocal in calling on the Biden government to Act.
“Canceling student loan debt would immediately put money in the pockets of millions of Americans. It would help lift our economy out of this crisis, ”said Warren in a tweet earlier this week. “And we don’t have to wait for Congress: the Biden-Harris government can do that with its executive authority,” she added.
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Democratic representatives Mondaire Jones of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alma Adams of North Carolina supported the resolution and will be present during Thursday’s press conference.
But the president’s response to the resolution remains unclear. Although Biden has repeatedly said he supports student debt relief, he disagrees with the Democratic legislator’s call for executive action.
The president said he supports the elimination of $ 10,000 in federal student loan debt, but he also asked Congress to address legislation on forgiveness of loans.
“It is debatable whether the president has the executive power to forgive up to $ 50,000 in student debt,” Biden told the Washington Post in December. “Well, I find that quite questionable.”
The University of Delaware graduate, class of 1965, added on the use of executive order: “I’m not sure about that. I am unlikely to do that. “
Calls for eliminating crippling student debt first hit the political arena a decade ago, when students frustrated with their inability to cope with rising university loans took to the streets to protest the Occupy Wall Street movement.
But Senators Bernie Sanders, D-Vt. And Warren brought back their urgency by competing with the issue in their 2020 presidential campaigns – and Warren, despite abandoning his candidacy, has not given up on the idea.
Warren, a former bankruptcy law professor, and Schumer drafted a resolution in September, asking the next government to cancel up to $ 50,000 of student federal debt without the need for Congressional approval, using the Higher Education Act of 1965 .
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Biden has already signed about 30 executive orders, including putting a pause on student loan payments in light of the coronavirus pandemic – suggesting that if the president wanted to use executive action to cancel a portion of federal student loans due, he would have done.
Although Biden made it clear that he will not wait for bipartisan support in his $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package for coronavirus-related economic relief, he did not express the same determination in promoting other fiscal policies.
Warren pressured Biden’s choice of secretary of education on the school loan issue on Wednesday. She asked Miguel Cardona during her confirmation hearing to commit to providing “immediate relief” to student debt debtors and said to the former Connecticut school principal: “One way I will continue to insist that you take is administrative cancellation. student loan debt. The law is clear. “
The two-term senator recalled Cardona: “The majority leader, Schumer and I describe how you and President Biden can immediately cancel $ 50,000 in student loan debt.”
For his part, Cardona agreed that student loan debt has a “significant impact” on borrowers’ lives and, while declaring that the federal government should provide “immediate relief to borrowers”, he gave no details on how to meet that goal. .
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Approximately 44 million Americans, or one in six people in the United States, have debts in the form of federal student loans – an impressive $ 1.6 trillion in student debt.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said student debt in the United States has a negative impact on an American’s entire “economic life”.
Fox News was unable to contact Senators Schumer or Warren immediately for comment.
Brittany De Lea contributed to this report.