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**MAY 31, 2023**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Biden, Student Debt, and the 2024 Election
The president could make generational justice a big winner for basic
decency-and for his re-election.
Buried in the text of the debt deal is a provision codifying in law
Biden's plan to end serial student debt pauses as of September,
pending a Supreme Court ruling on his partial debt cancellation. If the
Court rules against him, the result will be a massive jolt to younger
Americans (and not-so-young Americans) saddled with debt, as well as a
big macroeconomic contraction to the economy.
Thanks to the debt payment pause, which began in the bipartisan CARES
Act of March 2020 and was extended indefinitely by executive order on
Biden's first day in office, some 48 million former students have had
a three-year respite from this financial burden, which now totals over
$1.7 trillion. By September, all could be paying the full tab.
When Biden announced his plan for debt cancellation in August 2022, the
decision was carefully poll-tested. Strategists weighed the benefit to
those saddled with debt against the annoyance of those who either never
attended college or who had already repaid their debts in full.
In addition, Republicans and corporate Democrats argued that the
beneficiaries of debt cancellation, as people who had attended college,
were better off on average than taxpayers who would be in effect paying
for the debt relief. Biden carefully split the difference by canceling
the first $20,000 of debt
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plus some other technical adjustments.
I think this mode of calculus is profoundly wrong. Lincoln and FDR did
not poll-test their values and policies-they went on intuition and
justice, and they went big.
The last two generations of students-millennials and recent Gen Z
grads-have gotten the most profound economic screwing of any
generation of young people since the Great Depression. Worse, really,
since those who were young and devastated in the 1930s got a chance to
thrive in the 1950s. There is no such economic rescue on the horizon for
today's young, barring a drastically different set of policies. And
that's the point.
Biden needs to embrace a broad agenda of generational justice for the
young. A young adult today pursuing upward mobility is not only saddled
with student debt. Many are unable to buy a house, or afford rent
without multiple roommates. The young have difficulty finding a stable
payroll job with benefits and career prospects that are more than a gig.
The calculus is even worse for African Americans and for those who did
not complete college and are still stuck with debt.
My generation-and Biden's-faced nothing like this. Student debt
hadn't even been invented; college and housing were affordable; and
there were plenty of career-track jobs.
We need an expansive Bill of Rights for the Young-debt cancellation,
free public college, affordable housing, as well as more reliable jobs.
Yes, this will cost plenty; we can pay for it by taxing the filthy rich.
This is what Biden should run on and let Republicans oppose the dreams
of the young.
Young people are precisely the segment of the electorate who are
somewhat skeptical of Biden's geezer-hood and who need to be motivated
to vote, big-time. The youth vote turned out big and broke heavily for
Democrats in 2018, allowing a takeback of the House.
We need that in 2024, and more. The old guy needs to be a radical
champion of the young.
Go big again, Joe.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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An Unemployment System Frozen in Amber
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Pandemic-era benefit boosts worked for jobless recipients and the
economy. Why did they go away? BY BRYCE COVERT
Congress Can Defeat Judicial Overreach
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On today's X-Date: Joe Manchin's Pipeline Payoff gets immunized from
judicial review, as does what could have been a deregulation ratchet. BY
RYAN COOPER
Unions Pursue Monopsony Case Against Pennsylvania Hospital Network
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The case against UPMC could serve as a model for labor-related antitrust
enforcement. BY LUKE GOLDSTEIN
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