picture of Biden sitting alone outside in the dark

[Johnny2X2X]

9. He's so strategic about taking credit

You're starting to see some more credit taking, but over his 2-1/2 years he's known when to speak up and when to keep hush about something that is really good to ensure that it will happen.

On Student Loans he's been a master and shown remarkable discipline. His $10K and $20K forgiveness would have been good, but they were a misdirection to some degree in my opinion. The real relief he provided was in changing the Pay As You Earn rules and getting them enacted early and without any fanfare. In my estimation, the student loan debt crisis has been solved by Biden. Not with forgiveness, but with changing PAYE to 5% of adjusted gross income from the 10% it used to be, and changing the adjustment from 1.5 times the poverty income to 2.25 times the poverty rate. A family of 2 making $100K a year went from a $625 payment, to a $250 a month payment. And he's changed the rules around interest, it doesn't accrue when you're in this program (which everyone is defaulted into). There is forgiveness after 20 years of payments no matter what balance remains. There are people who will hae no payments under this plan. It makes payments affordable for everyone. Sure, will still be like a car payment for people, and that's a bummer, but I can't think of a scenario where payments aren't reasonable no matter what anyone owes.

Biden has been perfect on this, he could easioly have touted his new PAYE all along, but then Republicans would have moved heaven and earth to stop it. Instead he used forgiveness as a decoy and got the more meaningful repayment changes through administratively. He's a Zen Master, he's delivering results even when he can't take credit. The results matter more to him than the credit.