Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged Biden to forgive student loan debt via executive order
Biden campaigned on canceling up to $10,000 in student debt per borrower, but the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is calling on him to cancel up to $50,000.
“We’re all here to call on President Biden to do right by the movement that elected him and to use his executive authority to cancel $50,000 in federal student loan debt,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said of the issue last year.
Ocasio-Cortez told FOX Business that Biden’s stalled follow-through on student debt relief is driving down his poll numbers with voters.
“It’s actually young people who have not really been served,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And their priorities were in BBB, which Sen. [Joe] Manchin has essentially stalled. And yet, you know, student loan debt and significant forgiveness of student loans, what the president can do to serve them.”
Asked whether student debt forgiveness would be something she wants applied to members of Congress as well as the general public, she said she was in favor of “universal” policies on most issues.
“Well, I generally believe in universal quality policies. So universal health care, and I believe that universal policies in general is the way to go,” she said.
However, the representative left the decision up to the president.
“But, you know, whatever, whatever the president decides, he’s going to decide,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But this is squarely in his jurisdiction. It actually doesn’t take an act of Congress to forgive student loan debt.”
