Biden's Student Loan Gambit

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Everyone Hates Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness

It is THE top story of the day: The Biden Administration has announced that not only will the government forgive up to $10,000 of student loan debt ($20,000 for those Pell Grant recipients), but he will do so using a post-9/11 law that allows for the government to forgive debt in a national emergency.

The emergency? You guessed it: COVID-19.

This move is being blasted by everyone left, right, and center. The right believes there is no constitutional ground for this (I, for one, expect a lawsuit). The left believes it doesn't go far enough. The moderate left is worried that voters who paid their student debts and will see nothing from this will switch to the GOP in November.

Once upon a time, Nancy Pelosi said Biden didn't have the power to do this.

And here's the clip Republicans should be running in ads between now and November.

Here are the details from the White House.

Provide targeted debt relief to address the financial harms of the pandemic, fulfilling the President’s campaign commitment. The Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). No high-income individual or high-income household – in the top 5% of incomes – will benefit from this action. To ensure a smooth transition to repayment and prevent unnecessary defaults, the pause on federal student loan repayment will be extended one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume payment in January 2023.
Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers by:
Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers.
Fixing the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program by proposing a rule that borrowers who have worked at a nonprofit, in the military, or in federal, state, tribal, or local government, receive appropriate credit toward loan forgiveness. These improvements will build on temporary changes the Department of Education has already made to PSLF, under which more than 175,000 public servants have already had more than $10 billion in loan forgiveness approved.
Protect future students and taxpayers by reducing the cost of college and holding schools accountable when they hike up prices. The President championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in over a decade and one of the largest one-time influxes to colleges and universities. To further reduce the cost of college, the President will continue to fight to double the maximum Pell Grant and make community college free. Meanwhile, colleges have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford. This Administration has already taken key steps to strengthen accountability, including in areas where the previous Administration weakened rules. The Department of Education is announcing new efforts to ensure student borrowers get value for their college costs.

Ron DeSantis Wins Big Without Lifting A Finger

Several primaries were held across Florida, New York, and Oregon last night, but the races with the biggest impact in Florida were in school board districts across the state. 25 out of 30 school board candidates DeSantis endorsed won seats in a clear sign that Florida residents approve of their Governor's stance on parental issues in education.

More from my friend Kira Davis at RedState:

Parents reached the limits of their patience with “social justice” political posturing and offensive curriculum. They were pushed too far. Local races have become bitter battle grounds as Americans grasp with the tough lessons of the last two years, thanks to pandemic-era overreach.
Florida’s results may also be a sign of what is to come in November, as other school board races across the country will be on the general ballots. Even if Congress doesn’t get their red wave, America’s school boards just might have a tsunami on the way.

The Left Slams CNN's Pivot To The Center

This is honestly one of the funniest media stories out there. Progressives are worried that CNN shifting its coverage to the center is a bad idea, which is a tacit admission that it was always of the left. People are now saying Jake Tapper is "MAGA," and that they'll never, ever watch the network again. Here's a look from The Wrap.

Back then, when Klein’s CNN was on top, there were still two functioning political parties in America. You could put a Democrat and a Republican together on the same TV screen and the worst that would happen was a rousing ideological argument over whether the marginal tax rate should be 37% or 42%. Yes, there was some fringey craziness over health care death panels and whether Sarah Palin could see Russia from her house, but for the most part the center held. Sanity largely prevailed.
Today, though, sanity is in short supply. Once U.S. House members Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger depart elective office in January, exactly which Republicans in Congress will the new, inclusive CNN invite on its airwaves for a reasoned exchange of ideas? The one who thinks President Biden is behind a Bolshevik plot to arm the IRS and turn America into Sweden? Or the one who thinks the late Hugo Chavez hacked into America’s voting machines to cheat Trump out of a second term? How will CNN invite the “other side” on its airwaves when all that’s left of the other side often seems completely bonkers.

Headlines Of The Day

Majority of White House Staffers Eligible for Biden’s Student-Loan ‘Forgiveness’ (National Review)
California to Ban the Sale of New Gasoline Cars (New York Times)
Charlie Crist Basically Concedes to Ron DeSantis With Confusingly Bad Campaign Statement (RedState)
Here's what Biden's student loan relief plan means for Louisiana borrowers (The Advertiser)
Who were Karen Carter Peterson's alleged accomplices? Documents, sources offer clues. (The Advocate/NOLA.com)

Tweet Of The Day