Brooks: I Mostly Liked Biden’s Loan Plan, But ‘No Way’ It Was Legal and Dems Had that Worry at First

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that while he agrees with transferring student loan debt, “there’s no way” President Joe Biden’s plan was constitutional and President Joe Biden and other Democrats had that concern at first.

Brooks stated, “I wrote a column more or less endorsing Biden deciding to give people a break on the debt. But, even at that time, I thought, there’s no way this is constitutional. There’s just no way that the U.S. Constitution thinks the United States president should sign a piece of paper and be willing to spend $400 billion. I mean, the power to spend is clearly in the House, clearly in the Congress.”

Co-host Geoff Bennett then cut in to state, “And Democrats had that concern initially.”

Brooks responded, “Initially. And Joe Biden had that concern initially.” Bennett agreed with Brooks’ point on Biden.

Brooks also argued that under Biden’s plan to pursue authority under the Higher Education Act, “I’m not sure he can do it as ambitiously as he had, but that would be fine by me. If he wanted to take, especially students who had received Pell Grants while in education and focus all the relief on them, that would be fine by me, because the program does skew a little toward people who are going to make a lot of money.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett