An Unforced Error
President Joe Biden has finally announced his program for alleviating the burden of student debt. Biden and his party have been on a winning streak for most of the summer: With a 50–50 Senate, they have managed to notch a string of legislative wins while gas prices have plunged, inflation has cooled, unemployment has remained low, and a dreaded summer COVID-19 meltdown has failed to materialize. And how will the Democrats spend this political capital? By celebrating a niche policy that will hand the Republicans a free issue in America’s ongoing culture and class wars, just as Biden and the Democrats head into the 2022 and 2024 elections.
It could have been worse. Some Democrats were pressing the president to write off $50,000 of debt, an idea that I said more than a year ago would have been a political disaster. The current plan, by comparison, is merely bad and politically obtuse.
The argument for loan forgiveness is not only that it is the right thing to do—I’ll come back to this—but that young, college-educated people are an important pillar of the Democratic Party’s base. It sounds moral and caring, at least within the bubble of a highly educated party, to advocate for relieving some of the cost of higher education. After all, everyone has to go to college, right? It’s practically a life requirement now. And kids don’t know what they’re signing up for when they take on boatloads of student debt—they’re only teenagers!
The truth, however, is that most people don’t go to college, and the majority of those who do go manage to get out without life-destroying debt. Fewer than four in ten Americans over 25 have a four-year college degree. Only 13 percent have federal student debt, and the average undergraduate leaves college with an obligation about the size of a moderate car loan. (Graduate school is where the numbers really climb.)
Worse, this policy is aimed at the young and college-educated, a group that is, in the main, composed of reliable Democratic Party voters—and who should by now be plenty motivated by the ongoing threat to democracy from the Republican Party. The legendary American general George S. Patton, describing his disdain for retreating and then having to retake the same ground, reportedly said that he hated to pay for the same real estate twice. But that’s what Democrats are doing: They are trying to buy a constituency that ought to be firmly in their camp. The point of a “base” is that it will vote for its own party come hell or high water. A “base” that needs to be enticed with a $10,000 bonus isn’t, by definition, a base.
Instead, the whole business seems like class-based special pleading for a very specific and small group residing mostly within the Democratic Party. The right-wing narratives and Republican attack ads easily write themselves—and they will carry some sting with independent voters in swing states, many of whom are workers in blue- or gray-collar jobs, or in service, clerical, and other nonprofessional occupations. “Did you go to college? No? Tough luck. Your debts don’t qualify for forgiveness. Medical bills? Business failures? Too bad. Joe Biden is giving 10 grand to a select group of people as a thank-you, and you’re not one of them.”
Yes, such ads will stink to the skies of rank hypocrisy. Republicans are happy to take bailouts when it suits them. And it will be unfair in the extreme to go after the Democrats for servicing an interest group in their party when the GOP is, in my view, nothing but a giant, cronyist pandering machine that hands red meat to its culture warriors and tax cuts and other breaks to its own special interests. But political messaging isn’t about fairness; it’s about messages that work, and this one is likely to land a punch that could cost the Democrats otherwise winnable votes. With democracy hanging in the balance, taking such risks for the transitory sugar high of a onetime hand-wave is irresponsible.
I have said nothing so far about whether loan forgiveness is a good idea. It isn’t. Even if the Democrats controlled legislative supermajorities, I would still argue that one more bailout won’t solve very much (and might even contribute to reigniting inflation, according to Larry Summers and other economists). As my Atlantic colleague Jerusalem Demsas recently pointed out, some of the main arguments about who would benefit, and by how much, don’t hold up very well. “The issue’s prominence in our discourse,” Demsas writes, “has less to do with its merits than the changing political landscape that has stymied legislative efforts and given college graduates agenda-setting power.” The progressive political analyst David Shor has made the same point—and warned that the dominance of a college-educated elite in the Democratic Party could undermine effective messaging from the Democrats to the rest of America.
My complaint here might seem pointless, since Biden’s decision is now done and dusted. And I think Biden’s doing a solid job—more than he gets credit for—as president. But I see this debt policy as an unforced error, and I hope that the Democrats do not make this a talking point in an election year. Republicans would be much happier debating college-debt forgiveness to households earning a quarter-million dollars a year instead of talking about how the GOP is a menace to American democracy.
The cheap bastards don't even feed the kids who can't afford it.
Education should be free. That doesn't have to mean every person in the country should attend college if they can't meet acceptable standards.
ROCKVILLE, Md. — President Joe Biden called on Democrats Thursday “to vote to literally save democracy once again” — and compared Republican ideology to “semi-fascism” — as he led a kickoff rally and a fundraiser in Maryland 75 days out from the midterm elections.
Addressing an overflow crowd of thousands at Montgomery High School in Rockville, Biden said: “Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of your kids from gun violence is on the ballot, and it’s not hyperbole, the very survival of our planet is on the ballot.”
“You have to choose,” Biden added. “Will we be a country that moves forward or a country that moves backward?”
The events, in the Democratic-leaning Washington suburbs, were meant to ease Biden into what White House aides say will be an aggressive season of championing his policy victories and aiding his party’s candidates. He is aiming to turn months of accomplishments into political energy as Democrats have seen their hopes rebound amid the legacy-defining burst of action by Biden and Congress.
From bipartisan action on gun control, infrastructure and domestic technology manufacturing to Democrats-only efforts to tackle climate change and health care costs, Biden highlighted the achievements of the party’s unified but razor-thin control of Washington. And he tried to sharpen the contrast with Republicans, who once seemed poised for sizable victories in November.
Just months ago, as inflation soared, Biden’s poll numbers soured and his agenda stalled, Democrats braced for significant losses. But the intense voter reaction to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and a productive summer on issues of core concern to Democrats have the party feeling like it is finally on the offensive heading into the Nov. 8 vote, even as the president remains unpopular.
Ahead of the rally, Biden raised about $1 million at an event with about 100 donors for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund in the backyard of a lavish Bethesda home.
After his speech at the rally, Biden lingered with the largely mask-free crowd for more than 15 minutes, diving back into the style of campaigning that had been disrupted for Democrats for more than two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. The president, who was identified as a close contact of first lady Jill Biden on Wednesday when she was diagnosed with a “rebound” case of the virus, did not appear to wear a face covering as he posed for selfies and hugged supporters.
Biden’s Thursday events come a day after the president moved to fulfill a long-delayed campaign pledge to forgive federal student loans for lower- and middle-income borrowers — a move that Democrats believe will animate younger and Black and Latino voters.
Republicans, though, saw their own political advantage in the move, casting it as an unfair giveaway to would-be Democratic voters.
“President Biden’s inflation is crushing working families, and his answer is to give away even more government money to elites with higher salaries,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. “Democrats are literally using working Americans’ money to try to buy themselves some enthusiasm from their political base.”
Biden on Thursday expanded on his effort to paint Republicans as the “ultra-MAGA” party — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — opposing his agenda and embracing conservative ideological proposals as well as Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.
“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” Biden told donors at the fundraiser. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”
“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said later. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”
The Republican National Committee called Biden’s comments “Despicable.”
“Biden forced Americans out of their jobs, transferred money from working families to Harvard lawyers, and sent our country into a recession while families can’t afford gas and groceries,” said spokesperson Nathan Brand. “Democrats don’t care about suffering Americans — they never did.”
Since the June Supreme Court ruling removing women’s constitutional protections for abortion, Democrats have seen a boost in donations, polling and performance in special elections for open congressional seats. The latest came Tuesday in a Hudson Valley swing district that, in a Republican wave year, should have been an easy GOP win. Instead, Democrat Pat Ryan, who campaigned on a platform of standing up for abortion rights, defeated Republican Marc Molinaro.
“MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women,” Biden said, noting the resonance of the abortion issue with women voters as some in the GOP push a national ban on the procedure. “Let me tell you something: They are about to find out.”
The shift is giving Democrats a new sense that a Republican sweep of the House is no longer such a sure bet, particularly battle-tested incumbents polling better than Biden work their districts.
Meanwhile, Democrats have benefited from Republican candidates who won primaries but are struggling in the general campaign. Trump-backed Senate candidates have complicated the GOP’s chances in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, while several Trump-aligned candidates in House races were not always the party’s first choice.
Trump’s grip on the GOP remains strong and has perhaps even become tighter in the aftermath of the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home.
JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority Project, an outside group that is working to elect Democrats to the Senate, said the Republican candidates are “getting caught up in the Trump tornado once again — that is exactly what voters of both parties don’t want.”
Biden’s political event, sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, comes as the president and members of his Cabinet are set to embark on what the White House has billed as the “Building a Better America Tour” to promote “the benefits of the President’s accomplishments and the Inflation Reduction Act to the American people and highlight the contrast with Congressional Republicans’ vision.”
Meanwhile, the White House has benefited from a steady decline in gasoline prices, which, while still elevated, have dropped daily since mid-June.
“Our critics say inflation,” Biden said, dismissing GOP attacks that his policies resulted in inflation being at a 40-year high. “You mean the global inflation caused by the worldwide pandemic and Putin’s war in Ukraine?”
In Maryland, Biden was joined by gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and a host of other officials on the ballot. Moore, introducing Biden, said his Trump-backed rival “Dan Cox is not an opponent. He’s a threat.”
Months ago, Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection fights sought to make themselves scarce when Biden came to town, though White House aides said Biden could still be an asset by elevating issues that resonate with voters and sharpening the distinction with Republicans.
Now, allies see the fortunes beginning to change and the president as more of a direct asset to campaigns.
“Joe Biden is not the ballot technically,” said House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer. “But Joe Biden is on the ballot, and Joe Biden needs your support.”
