Senate Republicans seem to have settled on a new messaging push, with a bill to block President Joe Biden from canceling student debt. The Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act was introduced by Sens. John Thune, Bill Cassidy, Roger Marshall, Mike Braun, and Richard Burr, with Sen. Mitt Romney quickly jumping on the messaging bandwagon with a tweet suggesting that any Democratic move to cancel student loans would be a response to polling.
It’s true that a series of polls have shown that young voters and Black voters support student debt forgiveness, and those are both groups Democrats must mobilize for November. But it’s also the case that student debt is a huge drag on the economic prospects of tens of millions of people, and canceling it is the right thing to do.
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The bill would prevent Biden or future presidents from canceling student loan debt due to a national emergency, as well as limiting the duration of any suspension or deferral of federal loan payments to 90 days during a national emergency. It would also prevent the suspension of loan payments for borrowers with household incomes over 400% of the poverty line.
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In their press release announcing the bill, the Republicans hammered on fiscal responsibility and framed the ongoing pause in student loan payments as a giveaway to people who don’t need help. They particularly focused on doctors as an example of people with high incomes who can afford their student loans. But medical school is so massively expensive that only wealthy people can become doctors without significant debt—an average of more than $200,000. That burden can, according to the American Medical Association, “discourage students from underrepresented minority groups or lower-income families from pursuing a career as a physician. This creates a ripple effect of widening health care disparities that disproportionately affect the accessibility of primary care physicians in underserved areas.”
Medical school debt, then, doesn’t just affect the individual doctors. It affects the care we get. Not that you’re going to hear about that from Republicans. “Unemployment is not at pandemic levels and a student loan repayment pause benefits those who are high income and able to pay their bills,” said Cassidy.
Additionally, while doctors and lawyers do have particularly high student debt, that doesn’t mean that most student borrowers have high incomes. Student debt reinforces racial wealth inequities, with Black graduates more likely to have debt and Black borrowers having higher average debt.
Republicans have another argument, though, and it’s just as bad.
”Two years removed, this White House and Democrats in Congress continue to pursue the fiscally unsustainable policy of suspending payment, and ultimately canceling, student loan debt, nearly two trillion dollars owed to the federal government. Following the costly response to the pandemic, we must focus on implementing a fiscal strategy that will address the unsustainable path we’re on, not compound it,” said Marshall.
”Fiscal strategy,” he says. “Unsustainable path,” he says.
Both the argument that student debt suspension or cancellation benefits rich doctors and that it is fiscally irresponsible are great examples of how Republican accusations are usually projection, attacks against Democrats for supposedly doing what Republicans have really done. The 2017 Republican tax law was a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy. The Congressional Budget Office projected it will increase the deficit by $1.9 trillion over a decade.
Republicans want to have this fight, and it probably does appeal to their base. But they also may be trying to stop Biden from making a move that would get a strong positive reaction from key groups that Democrats need to get to the polls in November. Whatever the politics, though, on a policy level, student debt relief is the right thing to do.
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