White House is exploring whether it has the legal authority to unilaterally cancel up to $50K of student debt per borrower as Biden comes under mounting pressure from progressive Dems to act in the name of combating "Economic inequality".
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said in an interview with Politico that Biden had tasked his education secretary, Miguel Cardona, to prepare a memo about the president's legal authority to cancel student debt.
The president has reportedly been leaning toward an executive action that would forgive up to $10K in debt per borrower, but progressives have been pushing him to do more.
The Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren-approved plan for forgiving up to $50K in loans got a boost after the election from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has also endorsed the plan, and insisted that Biden could erase the debt "With the stroke of a pen", and that including Congress in the decisionmaking simply isn't necessary.
Biden has said he doesn't believe he has the legal authority to forgive $50K per borrower.
This has been his primary excuse for endorsing $10K in forgiveness, instead of $50K. But by tasking one of his most progressive cabinet members to come up with a legal rationale, it looks like Biden is seriously considering even more unilateral debt forgiveness.
Proponents of canceling student debt have argued that the president does have the authority to cancel student debt, and that this authority stems from the Higher Education Act of 1965, which gives the education secretary the authority to use federal authority and credit to back - and cancel - student loans.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-looking-legal-excuse-cancel-50k-student-debt-borrower
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