By Restarting Student Loan Payments, Joe Biden Is Shooting the Democrats in the Foot
Canceling student debt is both the right thing to do and what’s politically smart. By restarting student loan payments and refusing to cancel student debt, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have shown they’re uninterested in either.

Joe Biden speaking with attendees at the 2020 Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) Legislative Conference in West Des Moines, Iowa. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Is smacking voters with a $400-a-month charge a good way to win the midterms?
That’s the average monthly payment more than 40 million potential voters were plunking down for student loans before the Donald Trump administration put a moratorium on payments in the spring of 2020. Now, Joe Biden is more determined to make you start paying them again than he has been to do anything else since he got elected.
With the country still reeling from COVID-19 and Biden’s legislative agenda floundering, he could simply take the big, easy win and cancel student debt, a power granted to the executive branch by the Higher Education Act of 1965. Instead, he’s communicated to tens of millions of voters his priority is to make sure they suffer more. Who’s ready to vote blue?