Great, Now Expand the Court

This isn't exactly, "Now let him enforce it!" but the decision of the Biden administration to turbocharge existing loan forgiveness programs to the tune of $39 billion.

They should have done this a long time ago, in fact, this should have been done properly during the Obama administration, but as a push-back against  the Supreme Court, it is a good thing:

The Biden administration announced Friday that it will forgive the student loans of more than 800,000 borrowers, wiping out $39 billion in debt.

The Education Department first announced last year a one-time adjustment to help address inaccuracies in payment counts for borrowers in income-driven repayment plans, or people who might qualify for the debt-relief programs. The plans allow forgiveness after making a certain number of monthly payments, typically after 20 or 25 years.

“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress toward forgiveness,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement Friday. “By fixing past administrative failures, we are ensuring everyone gets the forgiveness they deserve,” he said.

………

Within hours of the ruling, President Biden said he would pursue a “new path” to give borrowers relief using a different law, the Higher Education Act.


Biden had campaigned on a promise to ease student-loan debt, an issue popular with his political base, and one with added urgency now that loan payments that had been paused during the pandemic are set to resume this fall. The administration has announced other relief measures since Biden took office.

The plan announced Friday draws on the education secretary’s existing authority over loan repayment programs.

………

Abby Shafroth, director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, said Friday’s announcement has no relation to the Supreme Court case and doesn’t raise legal concerns because it’s built on long-standing congressional authority over income-driven repayment plans. “Congress created these plans that provide debt relief to people who make payments based on their income for 20 to 25 years. … What we’re seeing today are some long-needed fixes to that program so that borrowers actually get the relief that Congress intended.”

………

Income-driven repayment plans have been around for years, but have drawn criticism because of poor communication between the Education Department, loan servicers and borrowers. A NPR investigation in 2022 detailed failures in the program.

I still think that increasing the size of the Supreme Court, along with extensive investigations of criminal wrongdoing at all levels of the federal judiciary is the preferred course, but this is a decent first step.