The U.S. Supreme Court may have blocked President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan last year, but that hasn’t stopped the commander in chief from figuring out ways to erase the debt of millions.
The White House announced on Wednesday that Biden’s latest executive action will cancel more than a billion dollars in student loan debt for more than 150,000 borrowers.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke to discuss the latest round of loan forgiveness and the timing of the bailout.
Student Loan Forgiveness
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced the president approved $1.2 billion in student debt cancellation for almost 153,000 borrowers currently enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan.
The executive action will provide debt forgiveness to borrowers in the SAVE plan who have been in repayment for at least 10 years and took out $12,000 or less. This relief was originally planned for July, but the White House instead moved the date up six months.
The president has now unilaterally wiped away nearly $138 billion in federal student loans for almost 3.9 million borrowers without Congress. In a press release, the White House touted that Biden has “already… canceled more student debt than any president in history… and has created the most affordable student loan repayment plan ever.”
‘Magic Eraser’
While the Biden administration wants the American people to believe this is nothing more than “lifechanging relief to students and families,” the Penn Wharton budget model predicted the SAVE plan will incur a net cost of $475 billion over the 10-year budget window.
“We’re supposed to believe that has no consequence – he just waved it away with his magic wand,” Megyn said. “I think this is a moment for us to applaud those people who were just waiting out the system long enough that they finally got a president who wants their vote badly enough to take out his magic eraser.”
As Cooke noted, Biden made student loan forgiveness a hallmark of his 2020 campaign. His plans hit a setback when SCOTUS ruled against him, but he remained undeterred. “President Biden’s response to being slapped down by the Supreme Court last year was to say I’m going to find another way,” he explained. “I think what is so irritating to me about this is that it seems to be Biden’s obsession. We’re told that he can’t secure the border, but he can do this over and over and over again.”
In Cooke’s view, there is no group “less deserving” of a bailout in the U.S. than college graduates. “That’s not because I dislike people who went to college – I went to college – but those people are doing better than everyone else… in employment prospects, career earnings, homeownership, divorce rates… health outcomes,” he said. “I find it baffling and revolting.”
With that in mind, Cooke and Megyn agreed this is simply an attempt to curry favor with his disgruntled base. “I can only conclude that it is an attempt to buy votes in an election year because the letter that he’s sending out today… doesn’t mention the legislature, doesn’t give a statutory reference. It’s ‘me,’ ‘I,’ ‘mine,'” Cooke concluded. “It’s obvious that it is the product of a panic.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Cooke by tuning in to episode 728 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.