Republican-led states are suing over President Biden’s plan for student-debt relief. onesarahjones writes that they’re waging class war, and if they win, they could keep millions shackled to debt
on Thursday that six Republican-led states are suing the Biden administration over the president’s plan to forgive some student-loan debt. As Republicans would have it, they’re fighting elites. “It’s patently unfair to saddle hardworking Americans with the loan debt of those who chose to go to college,” Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge told the AP. The truth is more complicated.
Threats from the right and from the student-loan industry itself have already harmed some student borrowers. The Biden administration announced on Thursday that borrowers with privately held student loans will no longer qualify for relief, apparently fearing the measure would be struck down in court.
There were limitations to the Biden administration’s forgiveness scheme even before the White House scaled it back. If you believe, as I do, that student-loan debt is the by-product of a broken andsystem, then the Biden plan was merely a step on the way to true justice. It fell far short of plans proposed by others, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and as such, it did not fully recognize the scale of the harm done to student borrowers.
The Biden administration could stand for an alternative: equality. Yet the president is already sacrificing his superior vision to fear. Student borrowers deserve better from the government that indebted them. The stakes are nothing short of freedom.Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.