- White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki told reporters Biden "has not ruled out" broad debt cancellation.
- This came after Biden extended the pause on student-loan payments again, through August 31.
- Amid rising pressure, Biden has been silent on whether he will use executive action to cancel student debt.
The recent student-loan payment pause extension might not be the last of the relief borrowers are getting.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden extended the pause on student-loan payments, with waived interest, through August 31. This is the fourth time he's done so. He said in his announcement that borrowers should use the time to prepare to resume repayment, and while broad student-loan forgiveness was not mentioned, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made clear it's not off the table.
"He has not ruled out, but I don't have any update on that," Psaki told a reporter who asked about the potential for broad loan forgiveness. "And I would note that, again, he would encourage Congress to send him a bill cancelling $10,000 in student debt, something that he talked about looking forward to signing on the campaign trail."
Psaki also noted earlier in the briefing that the administration will "continue to assess" whether payments should be paused beyond August 31.
Leading up to the prior May 1 payment restart date, advocates and some Democratic lawmakers were not only pushing for a further extension of the pause — a lot of them wanted to see the relief carry over to at least next year — but also some form of student-debt cancellation. Other than his campaign pledge to approve $10,000 in forgiveness for every federal borrower, Biden himself has been largely silent on the issue, but Psaki has told reporters on numerous occasions that the issue now rests with Congress.
Some lawmakers have taken the matter into their own hands. Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez introduced legislation in February to cancel $25,000 in student debt per borrower, and while he told Insider he thinks that amount could have potential to get bipartisan support, he also said that "filing this bill is partly to call the attention to the administration that there's a promise you haven't fulfilled, and we expect you to do it."
Leading voices for broad debt cancellation, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have pushed back on introducing legislation, saying that doing so would take too long and would be unlikely to succeed due to partisanship in Congress.
Still, whether Biden has the authority to cancel student debt broadly remains controversial. He asked the Education Department over a year ago to prepare a memo determining that authority, but redacted documents obtained by the Debt Collective revealed the memo has existed since April but has yet to be made public.
And while Republicans remain adamant Biden should not extend broad student-debt relief any further, Democrats are maintaining that he should, and he can.
"Last week, my colleagues & I led nearly 100 Members of Congress in urging @POTUS to extend the federal student loan payment pause & today the President heeded our calls," Warren wrote on Twitter. "This extension is critical, but now is the time for the President to use his authority to #CancelStudentDebt."