Biden Backs Out of Final Effort On Massive Student Loan Bailout

Biden Backs Out of Final Effort On Massive Student Loan Bailout

It was probably easier for Biden to walk away from this since he doesn’t need to buy anyone’s votes anymore.

The College Fix reports:

Biden withdraws $600 billion student loan bailout

President Joe Biden will no longer pursue a final, massive student loan bailout due to fears the unfinished regulations could be rewritten by President Donald Trump.

The Biden administration was pushing through with a final plan, which the federal government estimated would cost $112 billion over the next 10 years.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget analyzed the rule and estimated a much higher $600 bill price tag due to the vague “hardship” definition.

But the regulation will be rescinded.

The Associated Press reports:

The White House expects to pull back unfinished rules across several agencies if there isn’t enough time to finalize them before Trump takes office. If the proposed regulations were left in their current state, the next administration would be able to rewrite them and advance its agenda more quickly.

Even as the Biden administration moves to pull back the rules, it pushed ahead with cancellation through other avenues on Friday. The Education Department said it was clearing loans for another 55,000 borrowers who reached eligibility through a program known as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was created by Congress in 2007 and expanded by the Biden administration.

The last-minute effort previously received scrutiny from experts at both the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Progressive Policy Institute.

“The subjective nature of the proposal is worrisome,” AEI economist Preston Cooper told The College Fix via email for a Dec. 6 article. “Whether a borrower is in ‘hardship’ is left up to the discretion of Education Department bureaucrats.”

Meanwhile, Ben Ritz with the Progressive Policy Institute said the proposal “creates a back door for blanket debt cancellation.”

The estimated $112 billion cost is a “gross underestimate,” Ritz, vice president of policy development for the think tank, told The Fix.

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