More than 150,000 borrowers are receiving emails from President Joe Biden on Wednesday stating that all or part of their “federal student loans will be forgiven” in what is really a transfer of the debt to the American taxpayer.
Politico reported that on Wednesday, the Biden administration was set to blast out emails to some 153,000 loan borrowers, who will see $1.2 billion transferred out of their collective debts under his Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan.
In the letter, the politically vulnerable president takes credit for the “forgiveness” in the first sentence.
“Congratulations—all or a portion of your federal student loans will be forgiven because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my Administration’s SAVE Plan,” the email, published by Politico, reads.
“From day one of my Administration, I vowed to fix student loan programs so higher education can be a ticket to the middle class—not a barrier to opportunity,” the letter states. Biden adds he hopes “this relief gives you a little more breathing room.”
The document includes the phrase “SHARE WHAT THIS RELIEF MEANS TO YOU,” which links to a studentaid.gov page that is not yet accessible.
“The borrowers receiving relief are the first to benefit from a SAVE plan policy that provides debt forgiveness to borrowers who have been in repayment after as little as 10 years and took out $12,000 or less in student loans,” the White House stated in a press release. Per Politico, Biden will speak Wednesday about the move at an event in Los Angeles.
According to Biden’s letter, the Department of Education will inform loan servicers if borrowers are eligible, and after the servicer applies the “forgiveness,” they will announce it to the borrowers.
The Biden administration previously crafted a $430 billion student debt transfer plan, which was ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023, as Breitbart News Senior Editor Joel Pollack reported at the time:
The plan was criticized for attempting to evade Congress’s power to control spending and debts, for prioritizing elite college graduates over working-class Americans who chose not to go to college, and for punishing those who paid off their loans or chose fields of study more likely to lead to finding good jobs.
As NPR notes, the SAVE plan “has become a key vehicle for President Biden” after the high court ruled against his nearly half-a-trillion-dollar debt write-off.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told NPR that he expects the latest move will be challenged in court when asked if it could survive legal challenge:
We’re using the regulatory process, which we believe includes public comment and negotiations with folks that don’t agree with us. So we do believe through this process it can continue, but we recognize that no matter what turn we make, we’re going to have folks challenging it. There are some that benefit from the system the way it was and I expect to hear from them. And, if I don’t hear from them, that means I’m not pushing hard enough
The move comes as Biden trails former President Donald Trump by nearly two percentage points nationally in the RealClearPolling average and as Biden’s approval rating in late January rivaled a historic low, as Breitbart News reported, citing Gallup.
It also comes as Biden has faced intense scrutiny over his age and mental acuity following the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s damning reroot on the president’s classified document investigation, in which Hur described Biden’s memory as “significantly limited.”