On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN Tonight,” Arne Duncan, who served as Education Secretary under President Barack Obama argued that President Joe Biden was justified in using the HEROES Act in an unsuccessful attempt to legally implement his student loan plan unilaterally because when the country is “struggling as badly as it was and continues to, you have to do everything you can.”
Host Alisyn Camerota asked, “President Biden, when he announced that he wanted to do this student loan relief, even some high-profile Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested that he did not have the power to do it. So, was it a mistake doing it through the HEROES Act the way he did it?”
Duncan responded, “I don’t think it was a mistake. When the country is struggling as badly as it was and continues to, you have to do everything you can.”
He continued, “And this is not a normal Supreme Court, as you so well know, this is a very unusual Supreme Court. And you look at things like the wealth gap in our nation with whites having six, seven, eight, nine times as much money as African Americans, because African Americans have less money, they have to borrow more to go to college, so going to college can actually exacerbate that wealth gap. We’re also facing a teacher crisis, as you know. Many folks want to go into teaching, but because it’s not a lucrative profession, they need that loan relief. At a time when we need more teachers more than ever, this is going to have a chilling effect on folks who want to enter that profession. So, no one is winning here, our nation is losing right now, Alisyn, unfortunately.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett