Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren For months, student debt advocates have held out hope that President JOE BIDEN would extend the federal student loan payment pause again when it is set to expire late summer. But when White House chief of staff JEFF ZIENTS hosted a small group of debt relief advocates earlier this month in the Roosevelt Room, the issue never came up. Zients passed out chocolate chip cookies packaged in bags with the presidential seal and reiterated the administration’s commitment to help borrowers. He solicited feedback from the group and gave everyone a chance to speak during the 45-minute meeting. The failure to explicitly address the payment pause left advocates frustrated and concerned that the administration will actually stick to its timeline to let loan relief lapse this time around. “It’s concerning that allowing payments to restart even appears to be on the table,” said one advocate, who asked not be named to protect relationships with the Biden administration. Student loan payments have been paused since March 2020 to help alleviate the economic impact of the Covid pandemic. Biden has extended the moratorium multiple times since taking office. At the end of last year, as legal challenges over the plan made their way up to the Supreme Court, Biden issued an eighth extension. He said that federal loan payments would kick back on 60 days after the litigation was resolved. If the litigation wasn’t resolved by June 30, then payments would resume 60 days after that. Advocates always viewed the timeline as flexible. They saw two key factors working in their favor. First, the political calculus. Millions of debt holders could have their balances completely wiped clean if the Supreme Court upholds Biden’s debt cancellation plan — but that’s a pretty big if. Amid the uncertainty, advocates argued that many borrowers relied on the pause and assumed, to some extent, that they wouldn’t have to restart payments while Biden was in office, especially as a presidential election neared. Second, the logistical considerations. Resuming payments after such a long hiatus was always going to be a tricky bureaucratic undertaking. But a funding shortfall at the Education Department has exacerbated that challenge and administration officials, congressional Democrats and consumer advocacy groups have expressed concern that the Biden administration may not have enough money to smoothly transition borrowers back into repayment. But despite those factors, advocates worry that Biden might not be open to yet another extension. Pressed by Republicans on Capitol Hill, Education Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA said during hearings over the past couple weeks that the administration is committed to restarting payments after the Supreme Court rules. “We’re preparing to restart repayment because the emergency period is over,” Cardona told a Senate appropriations subcommittee last week. “The HEROES Act provides me the opportunity to create a waiver for those who were impacted significantly by the pandemic.” When asked about the payment pause, an administration official said: “We’re confident the law is on our side and that the Supreme Court will allow the Department to move forward with providing one-time debt relief to borrowers to ensure that they are not made worse off with respect to their loans because of the pandemic and as they prepare to restart loan payments.” Meanwhile, the Education Department has been looking at ways to soften the blow of payments restarting. Officials are considering, for example, a grace period in which borrowers aren’t penalized for missing payments for as long as the first year after they resume, according to people familiar with the plans. A lot could still happen between now and September. Some advocates note that, in the past, Biden has waited until just a few days before the pause’s expiration to issue another extension, and that the administration might be more reluctant to telegraph its next move before the Supreme Court issues its decision. While advocates were initially skeptical of how much of an ally Zients would be inside the White House, a person familiar with Zients’ thinking says he regularly engages with debt relief advocates and lawmakers on the issue, including Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.), Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.) and Rep. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.). MESSAGE US — Are you MIGUEL CARDONA? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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