Laura Clawson has a front-page story on the issues surrounding the push to forgive student loan debt.
I just want to point out one more issue about that decision: when to announce it.
Keep in mind that many American voters tend to be . . . not well-informed on the issues of the day. Witness the fine folks who think that women can just lactate their way out of the current formula shortage. Or the large percentage who don’t know that 2021 was a record year for job growth.
Moreover, there are a certain percentage of voters who vote primarily on “vibes” rather than facts, and just remember the last thing that made them feel good or bad about the government. As an example, consider the federal government shutdown in 2013 when Republicans in the House insisted on defunding the Affordable Care Act to keep government open. That shutdown hurt the Republicans in the polls.
And then there was the infamous rollout of healthcare.gov, which came just a couple of weeks later. The net result was a significant percentage of voters forgot about the shutdown, and latched onto that instead. The hole the shutdown created for Republicans went poof.
Moreover, there’s about a 100 percent chance that Republicans will try and file a lawsuit to prevent this from happening because “reasons.” The closer to the election he announces it, the less time available for adverse judgments to happen.
In other words: I do expect Biden to announce something. But I would be very surprised if it happened before the 4th of July. I’d expect it to happen somewhere around Labor Day.