The Biden administration announced last week it “canceled” $5.8 billion in student loan debt for tens of thousands of public service workers.
Biden’s latest vote-buying scheme, which will affect nearly 78,000 borrowers, results from “fixes made by the Administration to Public Service Loan Forgiveness.”
The debt relief announced today includes borrowers who have benefitted from the Biden-Harris Administration’s limited PSLF waiver as well as regulatory improvements made to the program by the Administration. Total relief through PSLF is now $62.5 billion for 871,000 borrowers since October 2021. Prior to the Biden-Harris Administration’s fixes to PSLF, only about 7,000 borrowers had ever received forgiveness. (Department of Education)
Last Thursday’s announcement means the Biden administration has shifted a total of $143.6 billion in student loan debt for nearly 4 million Americans onto hardworking taxpayers.
“For too long, our nation’s teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters, and other public servants faced logistical troubles and trap doors when they tried to access the debt relief they were entitled to under the law," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. "With this announcement, the Biden-Harris Administration is showing how we’re taking further steps not only to fix those trap doors, but also to expand opportunity to many more Americans.
"Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning of the Administration. The Biden Administration is turning a promise broken under our predecessor into a promise kept," he added.
Even though the Supreme Court blocked the president's broader student loan "forgiveness" effort, Biden bragged last month that its ruling "didn't stop" him.
Indeed, in responding to last week's announcement, he pledged to continue finding more ways to provide "relief."
Under my Administration, we’ve approved $144 billion in student debt cancellation for nearly four million Americans through various actions.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 22, 2024
I won’t back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver more relief.
Critics argue the president's loan "forgiveness" efforts are a slap in the face to taxpayers.
"Democrats claim that they want to help the disadvantaged students by doing this, but it's really just a bailout of the elites, and hard-workingtaxpayers are on the hook for all of this, because the United States will need to make up for that lost federal revenue in the form of those student loans that won't be paid back," Fox News' Laura Ingraham said last month. "So, it's either spending cuts or additional borrowing and any interest associated with that new debt."