On October 4th the Biden White House and U.S. Department of Education announced an additional $9 billion in student loan debt relief through “fixes the U.S. Department of Education had made to income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness .” Taxpayers ought to be very concerned about this development.
According to the announcement, the Biden administration has approved the cancellation of nearly $127 billion in student loan debt. This is despite the Supreme Court's June decision, where the justices ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority last year when it announced that it would cancel up to $400 billion in student loans.
The White House’s announcement builds on actions taken by the U.S. Department of Education last month to start the regulatory process to establish a “path to debt relief for student loan borrowers” through a “Debt Relief Negotiated Rulemaking,” which would potentially cancel $10’s of billions of student loan debt.
While the administration continues to provide loan forgiveness and works to circumvent the Supreme Court, taxpayers will ultimately be left with the bill in the form of increased taxes and inflation, as well as adding to our national debt, which currently stands at over $33 trillion. The Biden administration should be laser-focused on inflation relief instead of bad policies that will further exacerbate inflation and harm the economy. Good public policy is best accomplished when it serves the nation as a whole by addressing issues like inflation that impact all Americans instead of narrow constituencies.