AOC says extending the pause on student-loan payments isn't the way to go: 'We should cancel them'
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
- Biden is reportedly planning to announce another extension of the student-loan payment pause this week.
- AOC criticized the last-minute extension for sowing uncertainty, and called for debt cancellation.
- Democrats have been urging for relief leading up to the previous pause set to end on May 1.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't thrilled with the news of another upcoming extension of the student-loan payment pause.
"I think some folks read these extensions as savvy politics, but I don't think those folks understand the panic and disorder it causes people to get so close to these deadlines just to extend the uncertainty," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. "It doesn't have the affect people think it does. We should cancel them."
—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 5, 2022
On Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to three news outlets that President Joe Biden will announce an additional extension of the pause on student-loan payments through August 31 this week. This will come just days before the previous pause was set to expire on May 1. It follows months of pleas from Democratic lawmakers and advocates urging the president that borrowers are not ready to be thrown back into repayment.
This announcement comes less than a month before borrowers thought they would have to begin paying off their debt, and Ocasio-Cortez criticized the "limbo and uncertainty" borrowers have been experiencing up until now.
She also expressed the need for Biden to just cancel student debt altogether — a request dozens of Democratic lawmakers have been pushing the president to respond to. Biden pledged on the campaign trail that he would approve $10,000 in student-loan forgiveness for every federal borrower, but he has yet to fulfill that pledge. The White House has since placed the matter in Congress' hands, saying multiple times that if lawmakers send him a bill to cancel student debt, he would be happy to sign it.
Last week, nearly 100 lawmakers asked Biden to not only extend the pause on payments, but to cancel "a meaningful amount" of student debt. His administration has yet to comment on whether that type of relief is coming, but advocates hope that it is. Natalia Abrams, president and founder of the Student Debt Crisis Center, said in a Tuesday statement that Biden's "piecemeal, short term approach is not enough to meet these challenging times."
"The President has an opportunity to pass bold, meaningful relief instead of band-aid measures," Abrams said. "We urge the President to consider the transformative effect permanent student debt cancellation would have for individuals, their families, and the economy."