Bidwww 8k8 com casinoen rolls out plan to forgive student-loan debt

President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a federal student-loan relief plan offering up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness, which some Democrats said wasn't enough and Republicans said was unfair and a move to win over younger voters in upcoming midterm elections.

Some 45 million people owe $1.6 trillion for federal loans taken out for college, with an average balance of $37,667, according to federal data. That total is more than they owe on any consumer debt other than mortgages. The White House estimates that Biden's plan would erase federal student debt for about 20 million people.

"That's 20 million people who can start getting on with their lives,'' Biden said. "All this means, people can start to finally crawl out from under that mountain of debt. To get on top of their rent and utilities. To finally think about buying a home or starting a family or starting a business."'

The plan, which is expected to face legal challenges and make the timing of any relief uncertain, meets a Biden campaign promise when he ran against President Donald Trump.

It comes after months of deliberations in the White House over concerns about fairness and whether it could increase inflation before the midterm elections. Biden's economic advisers reportedly made the case that by pairing the loan forgiveness with income caps and resuming loan payments that have been put on hold, the cancellation would have a negligible effect on rising consumer prices.

Progressive and Democratic lawmakers, labor unions and civil rights groups have been pushing the Biden administration to cancel as much as $50,000 in student debt to address economic racial disparities.

Republicans said the relief plan was "selling out working families" to appease to the progressive wing of the party.

The plan "is an insult to every American who played by the rules and worked hard to responsibly pay off their own debt", Senator John Barrasso, chair of the Senate Republican Conference, said in a statement.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said, "President Biden's inflation is crushing working families, and his answer is to give away even more government money to elites with higher salaries. Democrats are literally using working Americans' money to try to buy themselves some enthusiasm from their political base."

Biden's plan builds on $32 billion in targeted student debt forgiveness his administration already has enacted for certain groups of borrowers. Much of that went to borrowers who say they were defrauded by for-profit colleges.

The plan comes days before the Aug 31 deadline when loan repayments were set to resume after a series of pandemic pauses. Industry groups had complained that the delayed decision left them with just days to notify borrowers, retrain customer service workers and update websites and digital payment systems.

The White House emphasized that no one in the top 5 percent of incomes would see any loan relief.

The plan cancels up to $20,000 in student debt for students who received Pell grants. The Education Department estimates that 27 million borrowers will qualify for the up to $20,000 in relief. Around 60 percent of borrowers have received Pell grants, and the majority come from families making less than $30,000 a year.

Millions of other borrowers will be eligible for $10,000 in debt relief, as long as they earn less than $125,000 a year or are in households earning less than $250,000. The administration contends that 90 percent of the relief will go to households earning $75,000 a year or less.

According to a Penn Wharton Budget Model released Tuesday, "between 69 and 73 percent of the debt forgiven accrues to households in the top 60 percent of the income distribution".

Biden said a pandemic-era pause on student loan payments, which has been in effect since March 2020, would expire at the end of the year.

The administration also is taking steps to make the student loan system more manageable for future borrowers. It will cap monthly payments at 5 percent of a borrower's monthly income and forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments for borrowers with loan balances of $12,000 or less, among other measures.

"In the middle of crushing Biden-flation, how could the president justify a student loan giveaway that overlooks Americans hurt most by inflation?" Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said last month.