President Joe Biden has pulled the plug on his most ambitious pre-election promise to cancel student loan debt for more than 38 million Americans, but the White House announced Friday that it will continue to pursue loan “forgiveness” for a much smaller group of debtors who went into government jobs.
[RELATED: Biden’s Spending Spree Continues With More Student Debt Cancellation…]
“The 55,000 public servants approved for debt cancellation today are workers who have dedicated their lives to giving back to their communities. Now, they are finally earning the relief they are entitled to under the law,” said President Biden.
At the same time Biden touted his plans for government employees, the federal Department of Education issued a notices to withdraw previous rules that would have wiped out the college debts of a much, much larger population.
Biden’s announcements came on December 20, exactly one month before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office, continuing the lame-duck president’s campaign to push through as many far-left policies as possible before he’s ousted from the White House.
The latest round of debt forgiveness will apply to teachers, nurses, law enforcement officers, military service members, and an unspecified variety of other professions. All told, the scheme will cancel $4.28 billion worth of debt, which effectively means that taxpayers will pick up the tab.
Biden bragged that the new debt cancellation would bring the total number of forgiven debtors up to nearly five million.
Democrats have long promoted student loan forgiveness in an attempt to garner support from the millions of Americans suffering under self-inflicted student debt.
Proponents have couched the debt cancellation in the language of “forgiveness,” suggesting that the debt will simply be wiped away, when, in reality, it will be paid for by every American taxpayer.
The Biden administration continued to push forward with its student debt cancellation program even after the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled last year that the debt forgiveness program was unconstitutional.
That ruling was later supported by a similar July ruling from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, blocking parts of the debt cancellation program not already deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court ruling.
