POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: ‘Tis the season for policy wish lists ****METHUEN ELECTION TODAY****

 

By Kelly Garrity MAKING A LIST, CHECKING IT TWICE — This holiday season, Democrats are sending their letters to the White House. With less than two months before Washington’s changing of the guard, members of Massachusetts’ all-Democratic congressional delegation have a flurry of policy requests for President Joe Biden. Here’s what they’re hoping the old man with the white beard hair will gift them before the season’s over: THANK YOU CONGRESSMAN MCGOVERN! — Rep. Jim McGovern is asking Biden for a “full and unconditional” pardon for Steven Donziger, according to a draft of a letter obtained by Playbook that he and other members of Congress are sending to the president. The human rights lawyer who successfully battled Chevron in court over the company’s pollution in the Amazon rainforest spent more than two years in home confinement before being convicted on contempt charges in a legal case that McGovern has long argued was directly tied to his work against Chevron. — Rep. Ayanna Pressley has been calling on Biden to grant clemency to those she says have been unfairly incarcerated. Today, she and other members are holding a press conference asking the president to commute sentences for prisoners on federal death row, giving them a prison term instead. — Sen. Ed Markey also wants the president to flex his pardon power to preemptively protect the political “enemies” Donald Trump has promised to prosecute, and to address mass incarceration. He also sent a letter earlier this month asking Biden to rush to obligate funding from the Inflation Reduction and the bipartisan infrastructure acts, and to do what he can now to protect climate programs from being undone down the road. CHINA IS LEADING THE WORLD IN CLEAN ENERGY BECAUSE OF TRUMP, REPUBLICANS & DIRTY ENERGY IN THE U.S.! CHINA IS PROSPERING & GROWING THEIR ECONOMY....WHILE TRUMP BULLIES OTHER NATIONS! — Sen. Elizabeth Warren helped lead a letter to the White House late last month asking for expanded pardons for marjuana-related crimes. And she wants Biden to issue a policy directive that could temporarily stymie Trump if he decided to use the military domestically . — Rep. Jake Auchincloss is calling on Biden to lift restrictions on how Ukraine can use U.S. weapons, and allow the country to use long range missiles to strike oil refineries in Russia. Not all the delegation's wishes are directed at Biden. There’s plenty members hope to get done legislatively before the next Congress begins. — Auchincloss is still hoping to get pharmacy benefit manager reform into an end-of-year package. — Rep. Bill Keating wants to see the Social Security Fairness Act pass and get Biden’s signature, bringing back full social security benefits for retired public workers. — Rep. Seth Moulton is hoping for a clean National Defense Authorization Act to make it through Congress, and wants a real budget passed — not just the continuing resolutions Congress has turned to recently to forestall government shutdowns. — Rep. Lori Trahan has a host of bipartisan health bills that could get delayed if they don’t get done before next year, including legislation expanding access to treatments for children dealing with rare diseases, and proposals that would prevent cuts to community hospitals. GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Several members of the Massachusetts delegation also want to get federal funding out the door ASAP, amid concerns that Trump could claw back federal funds. TODAY — Gov. Maura Healey hosts a ceremonial signing for the Mass Leads Act at 10 a.m. in Cambridge. Lt. Gov. Kim Drsicoll chairs a meeting of the Seaport Economic Council at noon at the State House. Rep. Ayanna Pressley holds a press conference to call on President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of prisoners on death row for federal crimes and resentence them to a prison term at 1 p.m. in D.C. Tips? Scoops? Birthdays? Email me:  kgarrity@politico.com   A message from Johnson & Johnson: We’re restoring the true meaning of healthcare—Innovating more precise, less invasive surgery and improving recovery. See how we’re connecting the best of Health&Care for every patient and provider. Learn more.   DATELINE BEACON HILL SHIFT TALK — Time of death for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s property tax shift bill: 8:15 p.m. Senate President Karen Spilka made the final call last night, saying in a lengthy statement that she will not move forward with the bill. “My job as Senate President is to work toward compromise, always; without it we would accomplish nothing,” Spilka said. “It is also my job to listen to the members of the Senate, and I have heard clearly that there currently is not sufficient support for this proposal. I will therefore not bring it to the floor for further debate.” Spilka’s statement capped months of debate that culminated in one of her top deputies, state Sen. William Brownsberger (a Belmont Democrat whose district includes a slice of Boston), publicly voicing the opposition he had long been privately harboring about the bill. Brownsberger was moved to speak out against the bill in light of the recently certified property valuations that showed there would be a lower-than-expected spike in residential property taxes for Boston residents. With the new numbers, the average family homeowner is looking at an additional $284 dollars on their tax bills in Fiscal Year 25, per the chart included in a letter Wu sent to business groups Sunday. “The ways [these] numbers came down, this bill should not be before us,” Brownsberger told reporters after backing up state Sen. Nick Collins’ latest motion to block the bill from advancing. “I personally do consider this bill dead,” he added later. But Brownsberger’s declaration wasn’t enough to sap City Hall of all hope that the legislation could still see that light of day. “We continue to wait for clarity on whether Senators will ever take a vote on this,” a spokesperson for the city said in a statement yesterday evening before Spilka appeared to officially kill any chance of passage. It’s a significant blow to the mayor, who spent serious time and energy hashing out a deal and shepherding the home petition through the process for lawmakers representing the city to shut it down, while lobbing questions about her credibility (Collins skewered the push to get the bill passed as a "campaign of fear and manipulation" and a "farce"). But it also hands her new fodder to hit the campaign trail with. Wu can’t campaign on having kept taxes lower for Boston residents, but she can say she made an effort to, only to be blocked by Beacon Hill and business interests. In other words: She can hammer home that “every single resident will know that their taxes are going up because the Senate did not vote through that last step .” DUTY CALLS — State Rep. Patrick Kearney, a lieutenant in the United States Navy Reserve, headed to Maryland Monday for two weeks of specialized military training. He'll continue to serve his district remotely, according to the announcement. — “Massachusetts issues long-awaited draft regulations for ADUs,” Claire O'Callahan, The Berkshire Eagle: “For months, municipalities across the commonwealth have been asking the state to clarify its new accessory dwelling provision. Some of those questions are now answered — in draft form. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities issued draft regulations for accessory dwelling units on Monday and announced a public comment period that will open Dec. 20.”   REGISTER NOW : As the 118th Congress ends, major decisions loom, including healthcare appropriations. Key focus: site neutrality. Can aligning hospital and clinic costs cut federal spending, reflect physician costs, and lower patient expenses? Join policymakers and providers to discuss .     FROM THE HUB —  “BPS announces largest single-year multilingual education expansion with new programs at 7 schools,” by Grace Zokovitch, Boston Herald: “Seven BPS schools will launch new multilingual education programs in the 2025-2026 school year, the district announced Monday, marking the largest single-year surge in BPS’s language offerings. The new bilingual education programs, approved by DESE earlier this month, will be spread across five elementary schools and two secondary schools, serving English language learners. BPS officials said they developed the proposals after a community-engagement process through the last school year.” — “Boston is slowly sinking. That doesn’t help sea level rise due to climate change,” by Kana Ruhalter and Arun Rath, GBH News.  YAHD SIGNS AND BUMPAH STICKAHS FLANAGAN WAS DUMPED BY FALL RIVER VOTERS SO THE LOSER CONVERTED TO THE LOSING MASS GOP PARTY EMBRACING UNPOPULAR PLATFORMS! ICYMI — “Ex-Fall River mayor mulls run against Auchincloss after joining GOP,” by Raymond Baccari, WRPI: “Former Fall River Mayor William Flanagan has left the Democratic Party to become a Republican — and says a campaign for federal office may be on the horizon. Flanagan — who made the jump after last month’s election — said during this year’s campaign, he could ‘no longer identify with’ the Democratic Party and its platform on issues such as abortion, the Second Amendment and border security. … Flanagan said he is now “seriously considering” a challenge against incumbent Democrat Jake Auchincloss for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District in 2026, which includes Fall River.” TODAY’S SPECIAL — Voters in Methuen head to the polls today to select their next mayor, after former Mayor Neil Perry died earlier this year following health struggles .  Former city councilor and now Acting Mayor DJ Beauregard is running to make the interim gig permanent. He’s up against Jim Sarcione, a local entrepreneur. Polls are open until 7 p.m. tonight. More from The Eagle-Tribune.   A message from Johnson & Johnson:   MIGRANTS IN MASSACHUSETTS IT'S TIME TO STOP DOMESTIC TERRORISM!  — “Natick Select Board chair's car vandalized after immigration policy debate: What we know,” by Norman Miller, MetroWest Daily News: “The Natick Select Board's consideration of a ‘Welcoming Community’ policy in connection to immigration and documentation has involved emotions high from those both for and against the policy. Now, police are involved after those emotions possibly turned criminal actions last week when someone vandalized Select Board Chairwoman Kathryn Coughlin's car by spray-painting ‘Deport Illegals’ on the driver's side of the vehicle.” — “Recent ICE arrests of Berkshire residents spark debate over immigration detainers and justice for victims,” by Amanda Burke, The Berkshire Eagle. PAYWALL FROM THE DELEGATION — “Warren renews push to update bankruptcy rules,” by Christian M. Wade, The Eagle-Tribune: “Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is renewing a push to tighten federal bankruptcy rules to prevent corporations and their billionaire owners from gaming the system. The proposal, filed with several other Democratic senators, would prohibit so-called non-consensual litigation shields in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings for people and entities that aren’t actually bankrupt. The legal maneuver — often called a ‘Texas two-step’ — is often used by companies to avoid corporate liability.” PAYWALL FROM THE 413 — “Mount Holyoke College’s $180M march toward carbon neutrality,” by Emilee Klein, Daily Hampshire Gazette: “Mount Holyoke College hopes to celebrate its bicentennial in 2037 by declaring the campus carbon neutral, and the liberal arts college has already taken significant steps toward that goal as it moves into phase three of a new geothermal heating system.”   Billions in spending. Critical foreign aid. Immigration reform. The final weeks of 2024 could bring major policy changes. Inside Congress provides daily insights into how Congressional leaders are navigating these high-stakes issues. Subscribe today .     THE LOCAL ANGLE — “DOJ finds Worcester police engaged in excessive force, sexual misconduct,” by Sam Turken and Lisa Wardle, GBH News: “Worcester police have engaged in excessive use of force and “outrageous” government conduct by allowing officers to have sexual contact with women while working undercover, according to the findings of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation released Monday. The two-year investigation involved extensive interviews with current and former officers, city employees and nearly 150 residents and local organizations, as well as reviewing police records dating back to 2017.” MORE — “Key takeaways from the Justice Department's investigation of the Worcester police,” by Brad Petrishen, Telegram & Gazette. PLUS — “Lawyer for Worcester slams U.S. Justice Department investigation of police as unfair,” by Brad Petrishen, Telegram & Gazette.  — “Never mind? Teachers uncertain if they'll pursue recall of mayor,” by Paul Leighton, The Salem News: “On Nov. 15, the leaders of the Beverly Teachers Association marched into City Hall to begin the process to recall Mayor Mike Cahill. It was a dramatic scene, with TV cameras following the action and hundreds of teachers and supporters chanting, ‘Mayor Mikey’s got to go.’ Three weeks later, as the dust settles from the end of the contentious teachers strike, it’s uncertain if a recall election will ever take place.” — “City faces Dec. 31 deadline for final ARPA spending,” by Grace Ferguson, The New Bedford Light: “The city has less than a month to nail down its final plans for spending $82 million from the American Rescue Plan, the federal pandemic-relief law. The city has chosen what it intends to spend the money on. But it hasn’t ‘obligated’ all of the funds yet.” — “Framingham Schools ready to move to in-house busing. Why the city council won't vote yes,” Tom Benoit, MetroWest Daily News. — “MIT students rally at Cambridge City Hall to demand city intervene in discipline against pro-Palestinian students,” by Alexa Coultoff, The Boston Globe. — “Cancellation of kids’ asthma medication continues to cause turmoil for Mass. families,” by Jason Laughlin, The Boston Globe. HEARD ‘ROUND THE BUBBLAH HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, Jessica Enes, Susan Milligan and Jasper Craven.   A message from Johnson & Johnson: At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured; treatments are smarter and less invasive; and solutions are personal. We are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum, of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow. We combine our science and technology with our determination to create a powerful force for care… and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more.   Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com .   Follow us on Twitter Kelly Garrity @KellyGarrity3   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  Massachusetts Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Ottawa Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters Follow us

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RSN: FOCUS: David Sirota, Julia Rock and Walker Bragman | Biden and Student Debt: A 40-Year Love Affair

 

 

24 February 21

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FOCUS: David Sirota, Julia Rock and Walker Bragman | Biden and Student Debt: A 40-Year Love Affair

David Sirota, Julia Rock and Walker Bragman, The Daily Poster and Newsweek
Excerpt: "In his new fight with Elizabeth Warren, the president is falsely insinuating that student debt relief would help rich people."

resident Joe Biden may not be a particularly ideological politician, but one of the few things he seems to absolutely believe in is debt. In particular, student debt.

On the campaign trail he appeared to suggest otherwise, repeatedly promising that he would support some incremental action to forgive student debt, tweeting that the federal government should forgive "a minimum" of $10,000 of college loans.

Last week, however, Biden defied Democratic leaders on the issue, declaring "I will not make that happen" when asked whether he supported Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren's proposal to go farther and cancel up to $50,000 of federal student debt—and his administration refused to commit to using existing executive authority to reduce that debt.

The declaration echoes a point of contrast between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, when the Vermont independent pushed for full student debt cancelation. Biden's statement also rekindles a bitter conflict between him and Warren, who as a Harvard Law professor excoriated him in harsh terms for consistently opposing debt relief. She is now calling on Americans to press Biden to use his existing executive authority to enact more debt relief, but the White House is balking.

The entire episode is a reminder that Biden's current position is consistent with his 40-year history of leaving Americans loaded down with bills as a consequence of seeking a higher education.

Most student debtors are not rich

In justifying his opposition to Democratic lawmakers' proposal, Biden asserted at a CNN town hall last week that people who went to "Harvard and Yale and Penn" should not have their federal student debt forgiven. The refrain echoed the now-pervasive talking point that people who attended expensive, elite schools would be the primary beneficiaries of student debt relief.

In reality, only 0.3 percent of people with federal student loans attended Ivy League schools, while about half attended public universities.

Biden's comment also implied that cancelling up to $50,000 worth of student debt would primarily help rich people, which is also inaccurate.

An October report from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth—which was co-founded by one of Biden's top economic policy advisers—found that "the student debt burden in the United States falls most heavily on those U.S. households in the bottom 50 percent of the income distribution—and even more on Black American households."

Those findings were echoed by a new study from the Jain Family Institute which shows that most people with outstanding federal student loans live in census tracts where the median income is less than $40,000.

"The sheer number of borrowers in low- and lower-middle income categories outnumber those in the higher-income groups," noted the study, which concluded, "Thus, the greatest share of the benefit from cancellation accrues to people living in lower-income communities, relative to higher-income ones."

Study authors Laura Beamer and Eduard Nilaj analyzed the credit reports of a million 18- to 35-year-old borrowers by census tract in order to assess the distribution of student loan debt by income.

Not only did they find that far more people who have student debt live in low- to middle-income census tracts than higher-income ones, but people in those income tracts hold about 75 percent more of the total outstanding debt than people in middle- to high-income areas.

The data directly contradicts the false argument that cancelling student debt would primarily help wealthy people.

"Cancellation of $50,000 would get over 80 percent of young borrowers out of student debt," Nilaj tweeted. "And inside that 80 percent, over 71 percent would be borrowers living in working class and lower-middle class areas."

Another key finding from the study: the average amount of outstanding loans has increased over the past decade, and low-income people and people of color comprise a much larger portion of the student debtor population than in 2009.

Those arguing against student debt cancellation point out that high-income people are more likely to have higher amounts of debt, either because they attended more expensive schools or because they were more likely to take out larger loans. But that argument misses the point: While a larger percentage of high-income student debtors have larger outstanding balances, there is a much higher number of low-income people with large amounts of debt.

And as the chart shows, cancelling only $10,000 in student debt would likely fail to adequately help the majority of low- and middle-income debt holders.

"Single biggest stimulus"

Beyond the fact that student debt cancellation would help low- and middle-income people more than it would help rich people or Ivy League grads, it is also a popular policy that would narrow the racial wealth gap and stimulate the economy.

In November, Warren said that student debt cancellation would be the "single biggest stimulus we could add to the economy." A majority of voters support student debt cancellation by a 17 point margin, according to a new poll by Data for Progress, and their support for the policy does not waver if the cancellation amount is $50,000 rather than $10,000.

Forgiving federal student loans would also help reduce the longstanding racial wealth gap created by job and income discrimination and school segregation, trends that have been aided by the federal government. Black borrowers hold more debt than their white counterparts and are less likely to be able to pay it back than white borrowers.

As Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez pointed out on Twitter: "Entire generations of working class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism." The promise of educational attainment as a way of achieving better economic outcomes has failed to materialize, especially over the past decade.

"It used to be that people who held student debt were a relatively small share of the population, disproportionately people who went to medical school or law school or some other high-cost professional program," said Marshall Steinbaum, a senior fellow in higher education at the Jain Family Institute who advised the new study.

"It's becoming the case that there are more and more people who are student debtors... which means that there are more people who don't have that high of a level of educational attainment, who go to different types of institutions, who don't live at the top of the income distribution. The set of people who have student debt is becoming more and more like the population as a whole."

After Biden declared his opposition to Schumer and Warren's proposal for $50,000 of debt relief, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the president believes any "relief above $10,000 should be targeted based on the borrower's income, based on the kind of debt in question, public schools versus private schools, graduate schools versus undergraduate. Obviously, there's a lot of considerations at play."

The statement reflects the Democratic Party's commitment to complexity and means-testing. The party that once championed wildly popular universal programs like Medicare and Social Security now tends to offer narrowly tailored proposals that skimp on benefits and eligibility—even as such limitations end up excluding millions of people.

With the promised $2,000 stimulus checks and now with student debt relief, opponents contend that without strict means testing, both initiatives would wrongly aid affluent people who don't need help. And yet, data show that means testing both initiatives would exclude millions of middle-class people who absolutely do need the help.

"I would like to congratulate my worthy opponents who've spent years falsely claiming that student debt cancellation is regressive," Steinbaum tweeted after Biden's CNN event. "Congratulations: you won. You've successfully deceived the political system such that millions of people will be immiserated who didn't have to be."

A history of aiding the lending industry

Throughout his career, Biden has had a reputation for being on the side of lenders. Between 2003 and 2008, he took $500,000 from the lending industry. In 2005, he was one of 25 Democrats to sign onto Republican-led bankruptcy reform legislation that removed protections on private student loans. The bill was considered a giveaway to lenders and helped create a $125 billion bubble in private student loan debt.

In a 2015 International Business Times report, David Sirota and Matthew Cunningham-Cook detailed Biden's long record working to make it harder for Americans to discharge educational debt in bankruptcy court:

As a senator from Delaware—a corporate tax haven where the financial industry is one of the state's largest employers—Biden was one of the key proponents of the 2005 legislation that is now bearing down on students... That bill effectively prevents the $150 billion worth of private student debt from being discharged, rescheduled or renegotiated as other debt can be in bankruptcy court...

Biden helped lenders make it more difficult for Americans to reduce debt through bankruptcy—a trend that experts say encouraged banks to loan more freely with less fear that courts could erase their customers' repayment obligations. At the same time, with more debtors barred from bankruptcy protections, the average American's debt load went up by two-thirds over the last 40 years. Today, there is more than $10,000 of personal debt for every person in the country, as compared to roughly $6,000 in the early 1970s.

That increase—and its attendant interest payments—have generated huge profits for a financial industry that delivered more than $1.9 million of campaign contributions to Biden over his career, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics...

Biden led the fight against his own party's efforts to soften the bill's impact on some of the most vulnerable debtors. In one case, he voted against an amendment that would protect divorced mothers who failed to receive child support from having to repay a portion of their debts in bankruptcy. He voted to oppose an amendment barring firms from charging more than 30 percent interest on loans. In still other cases, he voted against extending special bankruptcy protections for soldiers, victims of identity theft and those with especially high medical debt.

In the early 2000s, Warren—who is now pressing the White House for $50,000 of student debt relief—led the fight against Biden's original bankruptcy bill. She slammed Biden as a "zealous advocate on behalf of one of his biggest contributors" and wrote that when it comes to debt, Biden "should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening."

In campaigning for president, Biden distanced himself from—and at times misrepresented—his record trying to slash Social Security, passing draconian criminal justice policies, and helping lead America into the Iraq War. By contrast, when it comes to student debt, he is sticking with his old ways, offering as little relief as today's politics would allow.

While his past defense of debt bondage involved him defending a powerful private finance industry that bankrolled his campaigns, he is now refusing to erase debt owed to the government, a public entity to which he has no political obligations. Biden won't even budge on the issue of publicly held debt, despite the fact that doing so would be extremely popular and wouldn't enrage any campaign sponsors.

He seems to genuinely believe that when it comes to student debt, nothing needs to fundamentally change.

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