- Five Republican senators on Wednesday introduced a bill that would ban the forgiveness of student loans.
- The law prohibits Biden from taking any action to cancel or forgive borrowers’ balance sheets.
- The bill is unlikely to become a law soon with 50-50 in the Senate and a Democratic-controlled House.
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Borrowers on student loans seeking widespread debt forgiveness will be unlucky if Senator Mitt Romney has something to say on the issue.
The Utah lawmaker, along with several Republican colleagues, on Wednesday unveiled a new bill that would ban the Biden administration from canceling all student loan debt, a political move the president has been considering since taking office last year.
The Student Loan Accountability Act will prohibit Biden’s education, justice and finance departments from taking any action that would cancel or forgive unpaid student loan balances or even portions of those balances, according to a press release. Wednesday.
The bill will include exceptions to programs for the forgiveness, cancellation and repayment of student loans that are already in force, such as public service loan forgiveness programs and teacher loan forgiveness programs.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Tom Tillis of North Carolina joined Romney in presenting the bill to Congress this week.
The bill is unlikely to become a law soon with a 50-50 Senate controlled by Democrats House and Biden in the Oval Office.
More than 40 million Americans currently hold more than $ 1.7 trillion in student loans. During the 2020 election campaign, Biden promised to forgive $ 10,000 to a borrower, but more than a year after his presidency, little progress has been made on widespread forgiveness.
“There’s no point in the Biden administration canceling nearly $ 2 trillion in student loan debt,” Romney said in a statement, citing a unlikely scenario in which the president cancels all U.S. student loan debt.
“This decision would not only be unfair to those who have already repaid their loans or decided to pursue alternative educational paths, but it would be highly inflationary at a time of already historic inflation,” the senator added.
In a press release Wednesday, lawmakers said Biden’s legal authority to forgive or cancel student loans was “legally questionable.” Earlier this year, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein said the president was exploring his legal options for forgiveness.
The latest indications from the White House suggest that Biden is considering repaying a student loan of at least $ 10,000 to a borrower through enforcement action, although questions remain about who would qualify.
Republican lawmakers sponsoring the bill said forgiving student loans would raise inflation, worsen inequality and encourage colleges and universities to continue raising tuition fees. An analysis in May found that Biden’s $ 10,000 plan would cost the government $ 321 billion.
But despite ongoing political controversy, Finance Minister Janet Yellen said last week that forgiving student loans “could be good for the economy”.
“There are some trade-offs that need to be analyzed,” she said during a Senate hearing.
Democrats and defenders, meanwhile, continue to urge Biden to consider further forgiveness, with progressives pushing for $ 50,000 per borrower, an amount the president himself said he was not considering.
Romney had previously spoken out against forgiving student loans, calling it a “bribe” for voters. He warns that this could be a slippery slope that could lead to widespread forgiveness of other types of debt.
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