This pressure from the top Senate leader by Biden’s own party seemed to attract a response from the White House on Thursday. A spokesman said for the first time that government officials were considering the possibility of executive action on the matter, but he also reiterated his goal of passing laws.
“This is one of those things the president can do on his own,” Schumer said on Thursday at a news conference with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) And the House’s progressive Democrats, who are pushing for quick action from the Biden government.
“President Biden has taken some good steps towards student debt, but we think he needs to go much further,” said Schumer, adding that he and Warren met with Biden and his advisers several weeks ago to discuss the matter. “They have been extremely open to listening to us,” he said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday that student debt relief is a “major priority for the president” and that he remains committed to canceling $ 10,000 of debt per person through legislation.
Psaki said that Biden “already took a step in executive action on the first day and would expect Congress to take the next steps.”
Later, in a tweet, Psaki said that White House officials are “looking at whether there is any action he can take through executive action”, but she again noted that the president “would welcome the opportunity to sign a draft bill.” law sent to him by Congress. “
Biden, on his first day in office, instructed the Department of Education to extend the monthly payments and interest freeze on most federal student loans, which benefit about 40 million Americans, for at least another eight months.
But Biden expressed doubts that he has the executive power to go further and cancel large student loan debts. “I find that very questionable,” he said in December. “I’m not sure about that. I am unlikely to do that. “
The White House did not include student loan forgiveness as part of its coveted $ 1.9 trillion relief package. Biden’s advisers signaled that they are looking at the next big legislative recovery package to carry out that proposal.
Schumer said on Thursday that his aim was to create a wave of external pressure for Biden to move forward with executive actions on student loans. “I told the president when we started this that we were going to try to bring the American people together behind this, to support them when they luckily decide to do that,” said Schumer. “And he had no problem with that.”
He dismissed an issue on Thursday about whether he was open to passing legislation to cancel student loan debt, as the White House has promoted. “The easiest way to do this is by President Biden [to do it] with a touch of a pen, ”he said.
Leading labor unions and civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, are among the groups that urged the Biden administration to use executive actions to cancel student loan debt.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Who is leading the House loan forgiveness movement, called this an issue of “racial and economic justice”, noting that black borrowers borrow student loans disproportionately to pay the debt. college will probably have difficulty repaying them.
Pressley urged Biden to “be bold and receptive to the movement that elected him”.
Republican Party lawmakers, however, have been adamant in opposing student loan forgiveness. Senator Richard Burr (RN.C.), the new Republican on the Senate education committee, said on Wednesday that it would be “dangerous and reckless” for the Biden government to pursue such a policy.
Trump administration officials at the Department of Education issued a legal opinion last month that concluded the agency does not have the power to cancel large student loan debts without legislation. Biden government officials could change that interpretation.
Some Democratic congressmen are also skeptical about pressure to cancel large student loan debts. Congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Chairman of the House’s education committee, said that while he supports “significant relief” for existing borrowers, he wants to focus on ways to approach college accessibility more broadly.
“Deferring payments is a big deal, and that gives us time, at least until September, to make other proposals,” Scott told POLITICO last week. “Therefore, the emergency part of the student loan problem has been solved by executive action.”
The cost of pardoning the loan has been a major obstacle when House Democrats pursue it through legislation. Last May, Democrats released a Covid relief proposal that would have canceled $ 10,000 of debt from federal and private borrowers. But House leaders later downgraded the proposal because of price concerns, ending student debt relief that was aimed only at borrowers “in economic difficulty”.
Supporters of student loan debt cancellation say that an advantage of using executive action instead of legislation is to avoid Congress’ budgetary rules that require compensation. “It doesn’t trigger the same PAYGO you get when you go through the legislative process,” Warren told reporters on Thursday.
Warren, who was the first presidential candidate in 2020 to propose the use of executive action under the existing law to cancel student loan debts, said he expected the $ 50,000 per borrower benefit to cost about $ 650 billion. “This is an executive action that will ultimately boost our economy,” she said.
Warren also said he believed the Biden government could also prevent any loan forgiveness from generating tax collection for borrowers.
She noted that she convinced the IRS during the Obama administration to avoid taxing the forgiveness of the loan granted to students who attended certain for-profit colleges. “We will do it again” during the Biden government, she said.
Juan Perez Jr. contributed to this report.