Joe Biden’s Plan B
After SCOTUS decided on a whim to overturn President Biden’s loan forgiveness plan, a number of doomcasters began a screed on what this would mean for the president’s re-election prospects, being that younger voters were largely a pillar of his support in 2020 and supported Democrats overwhelmingly in 2022 – rather than laying the blame squarely where it belongs.
There was a lot of despair last year as people wondered how much President Biden would end up forgiving before he made his decision – but now it’s fairly clear why he spent so long determining how much student loan debt he would cancel.
In short, President Biden always knew that SCOTUS wouldn’t side with his administration on this particular issue – and they’d probably try to drum up their own public support for trying to get rid of it. That’s why, just a week after their decision, he proposed a comprehensive backup plan and immediately moved to forgive $39 billion in student loan debt – with a total of over $116 billion in student loans already forgiven, and 3.4 million borrowers feeling the benefits of this administration’s education department. There will always be the detractors who argue that this doesn’t go far enough, but it’s already changing lives for the better, while also leaving a clear blueprint of where.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making