President Biden on Friday hit out at the Republican state officials and legislators who supported the lawsuit which enabled the Supreme Court to strike down his student debt forgiveness initiative, accusing many of them of hypocrisy for taking money from pandemic-era relief programmes while opposing relatively meager relief for student loan borrowers.
“Some of the same elected Republicans, members of Congress who strongly opposed relief for students, got hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves … several members of Congress got over a million dollars — all those loans are forgiven,” he said.
“The hypocrisy is stunning,” he said.
Accompanied by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Mr Biden opened his remarks by acknowledging that there are likely “millions of Americans” who now “feel disappointed and discouraged or even a little bit angry about the court’s decision today on student debt”.
“And I must admit, I do too,” he said.
Still, Mr Biden attempted to remind Americans that his administration has previously taken actions to reform student loan repayment programmes to make them easier to access, and to keep borrowers from spending more than five per cent of disposable income on monthly repayments, and to strengthen loan forgiveness programmes for borrowers who take public service jobs.
The president also said he has directed Mr Cardona to “find a new way” to grant similar loan relief “as fast as we can” in a way that is “consistent” with the high court’s decision.
He noted that the “legally sound” path he’s ordered the education secretary to find using provisions of the Higher Education Act will “take longer” but he stressed that it remains “the best path” to providing relief for borrowers.
In the mean time, Mr Biden said his administration is creating a temporary year-long “on-ramp repayment programme” under which conditions will remain largely the same as they have during the three-year pandemic-era pause in payments which is set to expire this fall.
“During this period if you can pay your monthly bills you should, but if you cannot, if you miss payments, this on-ramp temporarily removes the threat of default,” he said.
“Today’s decision closed one path. Now we’re going to pursue another — I’m never gonna stop fighting,” the president continued, adding that he will use “every tool” at his disposal to get Americans the student debt relief they need so they can “reach [their] dreams”.
“It’s good for the economy. It’s good for the country. It’s gonna be good for you,” he said.
Asked by reporters whether he’d given borrowers false hope by initiating the now-doomed forgiveness plan last year, Mr Biden angrily chided the GOP for having acted to take away the path to debt relief for millions.
“I didn’t give any false hope. The question was whether or not I would do even more than was requested. What I did I felt was appropriate and was able to be done and would get done. I didn’t give borrowers false hope. But the Republicans snatched away the hope that they were given and it’s real, real hope,” he said.