[ad_1]
“Team“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Lead their progressive colleagues in increasing the pressure on President Biden to publish a memo exploring its power to unilaterally cancel student debt.
Omar led the letter to Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, calling on the administration to release the memo Cardona sent to the president regarding student debt cancellation by October 22.
“President Biden can cancel student debt in the blink of an eye,” Omar tweeted Friday. “Today, we ask the Administration to publish the note on the cancellation of student debt and [cancel student debt]. “
NEW JERSEY TEACHERS ALARMED BY UNION TRAINING TO CONNECT CONVOS ON COVID VACCINE WITH PARENTS AND STUDENTS
Pointing to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain saying in April that the memo would be released in a few “weeks,” lawmakers said more than “six months” have passed and it is time “to publish. the grade and write off student debt. “
“Federal student debt can be written off with a ‘pencil stroke’,” lawmakers said in their letter. “This authority is already being used, as it is currently being used to write off interest held on all student loans held by the federal government.”
“Now is the time for you to honor your campaign pledge and use this power to write off all student debt,” they wrote.
The progressive group also claimed that the existence of student debt “is a political failure”.
“Even in times of economic normality, student debt is a political failure,” they wrote. “Restoring student debt payments in the midst of a pandemic is an act of political failure.”
“Canceling student debt is both the morally right and economically sound thing to do,” the letter concluded.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Said earlier this year that the president does not have the power to unilaterally write off student debt through executive order, and that this would require legislation of Congress.
Biden and his predecessor both used the Higher Education Act of 1965 to suspend payments on federal student loans during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s unclear whether the president could globally write off the debt.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Neither the White House nor the Department of Education immediately commented on the letter to Fox News.
Houston Keene is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find him on Twitter at @HoustonKeene.
[ad_2]
Source link