Sanders Says GOP Plot to Tank Student Debt Relief Will ‘Hurt Them Politically’
Sen. Bernie Sanders argued late Tuesday that the Republican Party’s efforts—in concert with dark money groups—to block the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation plan in the courts “will hurt them politically” as the November midterms approach.
“I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country,” Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a longtime proponent of total student debt forgiveness, said in an appearance on MSNBC.
“What Biden did is the right thing—I would have gone further,” the senator said of the president’s proposed $10,000 in debt cancellation for borrowers with federal student loans and up to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. “It’s what the people want. I’m not going to tell you it’s 100% popular. But it is what the people want. And you know what? If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants or billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections.”
Asked specifically about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) recent announcement that he’s been speaking with litigators to devise a legal case against Biden’s student debt cancellation plan—which relies on emergency authorities established by the 2003 HEROES Act—Sanders replied that a “strong majority of the American people think we should cancel student debt.”
“If Senator Cruz and others want to challenge that,” he added, “I think that shall hurt them politically.”
Sanders’ comments came as GOP lawmakers and right-wing advocacy groups continued to seek out plaintiffs with standing to challenge student debt relief in court, with the ultimate goal of getting the case before the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.
Cruz said earlier this month that one Supreme Court litigator told him student loan servicers are best-positioned to claim harm from the Biden administration’s plan, which appears to have helped boost the president’s popularity among young voters.
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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