3 Democratic senators reportedly want Biden to hold off on student-debt cancellation so they can push him to go big

• Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, and Raphael Warnock want Biden to hold off on student-debt cancellation, per Politico.
• They want one last chance to meet with Biden and urge him to go big on broad relief.
• Biden recently said he is not considering $50,000 in forgiveness, which the lawmakers pushed for.

Three Democratic senators want President Joe Biden to go as big as possible with student-loan relief — and that means urging him to wait on canceling any debt.

Politico reported on Friday that Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, and Raphael Warnock are requesting Biden hold off on implementing any loan forgiveness via executive action until they can arrange a meeting with him, according to sources familiar with the matter. Per Politico, the three lawmakers want one last chance to push Biden to go as big as possible with relief, following the President’s comments that he is not considering $50,000 in debt cancellation for federal borrowers.

“President Biden told the senator months ago he wanted to meet about this issue, and the senator wants to make sure the president hears why Georgians want strong debt relief before the White House takes any action,” a Warnock spokesperson told Politico.

Schumer and Warnock’s offices did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, and a Warren spokesperson declined to comment.

Schumer, Warnock, and Warren have consistently pushed for $50,000 in relief, and they have long argued that canceling student debt is something Biden can and should do using his executive authority. But Biden himself hasn’t been quite so sure. While he pledged to approve $10,000 in forgiveness on the campaign trail, he expressed hesitancy with his authority to wipe out larger amounts of student debt early into his term. Now, it looks like he believes he does have authority to enact broad relief, telling reporters recently a decision on that relief will be made in coming weeks, but it’s unclear how expansive it will be, or if it will be subjected to income limits.

But as Warren and her colleagues have maintained, the more relief the better. According to data obtained by Warren’s office and recently provided to Insider, while canceling $10,000 in student debt would zero out balances for a third of borrowers, $50,000 in cancellation would wipe out debt for 72% of borrowers, or 30 million Americans.

“The more President Biden cancels, the more we narrow the racial wealth gap among borrowers and the bigger the boost to Americans’ economic futures,” Warren said in a statement. “This is the right thing to do.”