Platner is a political dumpster fire and the epitome of their moral hypocrisy.

Platner had a tattoo resembling the Nazi Totenkopf symbol, associated with the SS and concentration-camp guards during World War II, on his chest, which has been exacerbated by his rhetoric. He has also been tied to a long list of inflammatory Reddit posts and comments: remarks questioning why Black restaurant patrons tip less; comments interpreted as blaming sexual assault victims for drinking; attacks on rural white Americans as stupid; statements advocating political violence; calling all police officers bastards; and, even mocking a wounded Purple Heart recipient as someone who “didn’t deserve to live.”

Platner’s history shows a documented pattern of offensive and vulgar conduct.

Despite these concerns, Democrats looked the other way while jumping on the Platner bandwagon.

Why? Because Platner has been leading in the polls and offers the party a chance to beat Sen. Susan Collins and win control of the Senate. Collins has served in the Senate for 29 years and is one of the Republicans’ more moderate senators. Democratic Party leaders rationalized Platner’s history, dismissed it as old news, and insisted he was a changed man. The moral outrage was swept under the rug in the name of political power at any cost.

Then another bomb dropped. Platner recently exchanged sexually explicit text messages with multiple women shortly after getting married and during the early stages of his senate campaign.

Democrats would be incensed if the shoe were on the other foot and Platner was the Republican candidate. They would be on every talk show and flooding social media, arguing that he was unfit for office and demanding his immediate withdrawal from the race. Progressive activists’ talking points would call Platner a Nazi and brand him as the face of the Republican Party.

Despite these recent developments, Platner has continued to receive silence, excuses, and outright support from prominent Democrats. Key Democratic leaders like Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Ro Khanna, and other progressive figures .

Sen. Sanders has spent years arguing that character, rhetoric, and personal conduct matter when evaluating Republican candidates. From chastising President Trump, to calling on Roy Moore to step down during the Alabama Senate race, to criticizing figures such as Herschel Walker and George Santos, moral standards and decency used to matter to Sanders. Not so much, apparently, when the candidate has a “D” by his name and his opinions align with Sanders’ socialist views. Then, the interests of the working class somehow become a permission slip for a moral and political train wreck.

Democrats should demand that Platner step aside before the next bomb drops. Gov. Janet Mills, who recently suspended her campaign, should be the Democratic nominee in this critical race if there is to do so.

The larger issue goes far beyond Maine.

Democrats now have two dramatic examples of losing their voice when it matters. Consider their lost-in-the-wilderness posture toward President Joe Biden when it was clear he was not competent to run for re-election. They either defended Biden as fit or remained silent.  And, the lack of moral clarity was disturbing, particularly from Jill Biden, who now concedes she thought her husband was having a stroke during his disastrous debate performance.

Even more concerning is the direction of the party. Democrats constantly describe themselves as the party of the “big tent” — a coalition supposedly broad enough to welcome different viewpoints, backgrounds, and perspectives. Increasingly, however, that tent seems to have room for radicals and ideological extremists while pushing out Democrats who think independently.

Take Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, for example. Fetterman is a progressive Democrat who has never abandoned Democratic priorities on issues such as labor, health care, and affordability. However, he refuses to march in lockstep with Democrats on every issue, particularly when it comes to Israel and public safety. His independent views on Israel have drawn not-so-friendly fire from the activist left. For that independence, he is increasingly treated as a disloyal outcast by members of his own party, who continue trying to push him out of the tent.

As my son Wes aptly said, the moral of the story is that some democrats seem okay with Nazi symbolism but not a Jewish state.

The modern Democratic “big tent” appears large enough to embrace candidates accused of extremism and deeply disturbing behavior, but not large enough to tolerate free thinkers willing to challenge progressive orthodoxy.

A party desperate for national leadership and a cohesive message that resonates with Americans cannot have it both ways. And, it can’t credibly cry moral outrage with Republican candidates and elected officials while accepting and explaining away the outrageous behavior and conduct of its own candidates.

Platner is a national stain on the Democratic Party in 2026, and Republicans will use him across the country as midterm fodder unless Democrats find their voice — and their standards — while there is still time.

Doug Friednash is a partner with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck, who grew up in Denver and writes occassional columns for The Denver Post.

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Re: “Thousands march on Labor Day,” Sept. 2 news story

We just witnessed another Denver protest — vibrant in spirit, modest in size. Where are our state and national leaders?

In March, Bernie Sanders and AOC drew 34,000 people in Denver. A march on May 31 drew what I’d estimate at 4,000 to 8,000 — still a strong showing, yet a fraction of what a moment like this could become. That same weekend, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was in town helping Sen. John Hickenlooper raise money. If either had announced a 15-minute stop at the protest, we could have shattered records. They did not show up. So, we’re left asking: where are our incumbent leaders, and the candidates for state offices?

This isn’t about social-media praise or dramatic Senate speeches. Who watches C-Span, anyway? Real leadership isn’t a talking head at a distant podium. Real leadership appears in person — where the people are, where fear is felt, where listening begins.

Our leaders must show up. Stand with us, not merely endorse our causes in general terms, but stand in the frontline of our shared struggles, willing to be counted among the people they serve. They should be one of us–accessible, accountable, present in our streets, schools, and communities.

How long must we wait for that message to our leaders to sink in? If a 15-minute appearance could move the needle, schedule it. If not, document the failure to show up.

Show up in person. The people are ready to see you — face to face, without filters, ready to be heard and held to account. We want to save our Democracy.

Timothy Brown, Denver

Where was Kirkmeyer when Community Development was cut?

Re: “First batch of special session bills head to Gov. Jared Polis,” Aug. 25 news story

Colorado State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican Senator in the Colorado legislature, made the statement that “all we’re doing is making it harder for small businesses to survive” regarding the budget bill passed in the special session last week.  I’d like to alert Kirkmeyer of Trump’s threat to the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, under the Treasury Department, which has been a lifeline for small businesses. So perhaps, you will direct some of your displeasure about the plight of small businesses to the White House.

Jeannie Dunham, Denver

China’s growing global economic influence

Re: “Xi says global governance has arrived at a ‘new crossroads’,” Sept. 2 news story

While most Americans are properly focused on the dismantling of the federal government under the leadership of President Trump, it is equally noteworthy that China is establishing new partnerships, currency relationships, trading pathways, political connections, and banking systems that are outside the influence of the United States — especially outside the reach of U.S. tariffs. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, led by China and the coalition of countries commonly known as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), portends a time when the U.S. dollar will no longer be the global currency but instead will be the Chinese yuan. I wonder if that will make America great again.

Dan Sage, Centennial

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It is with the humility that comes with having been mistaken that I view the controversy surrounding Rep. Gabe Evans’ claims about his Mexican-born grandfather. On the campaign trail last year for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, Evans described his abuelito, Cuauhtemoc Chavez, as a man who “did it the right way” when he immigrated to America.

The truth is more complex, . Chavez came to the U.S. illegally as a young child. He was arrested as a teen and subject to deportation proceedings. At some point in his youth he was arrested but not convicted of attempted burglary. He later served in World War II and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The article suggests that Chavez was granted citizenship, not because of his service to the nation as Evans has stated, but because a 1944 law made it so candidates for naturalization no longer had to show proof of lawful entry.

Did Evans’ grandfather become a citizen “the right way?” The answer is not black and white. He came here illegally but was ultimately naturalized through a legal process that is no longer available to immigrants who first arrive illegally.

As for my family, my dad’s kin emigrated from Germany and the Russian Empire decades after the Civil War. My mom’s family immigrated to Pennsylvania, one of the first states to abolish slavery, and Maryland from England and Central Europe beginning in the 17th century. My mom’s great-great-grandfather, Joseph Lopez, born Joseph Getward, deserted from the Royal Navy to come to the U.S. He later joined the New York Volunteer Infantry, was captured, and ended up at Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp. Adding all this up, odds seemed good that my family lacked a connection to the horrors of human bondage.

That was until last weekend, when I learned that Joseph Lopez’s daughter-in-law (my great-great-grandmother) had a great-great-grandfather who owned slaves and with one of them fathered a son, her great-grandfather, my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Guarding against the deeply racist attitudes of the day, my relatives of mixed ethnic heritage started a family rumor that their darker skin tone must have come from a Native American ancestor.

Turns out my assumptions about my family were incorrect. The truth is far more complex; my family tree includes at least one slaveholder and at least one slave. If I weigh in on a political issue like racial reparations and choose to invoke my family history, I cannot simply say “my whole family did it right.” In fact, if I searched further, I would find other slave owners and slaves even on my dad’s side. Pre-Christian Germanic tribes practiced slavery, too. It was an abhorrent practice throughout human history. No one’s family is a paragon of virtue.

It’s with that perspective that I can offer Evans grace for his mistake. Colorado Newsline produces some excellent investigative journalism, but as a far-left news organization, don’t expect any grace for Republicans from them. Rightwing media reacted the same way, accusing Sen. Elizabeth Warren of insincerity when she overstated her Native American heritage. How do we know she wasn’t relying on family lore? I have never met Evans, but it seems more likely he didn’t know the nuances of his grandfather’s case than that he deliberately misspoke. Knowing how I was wrong about my own family history, I’m going to give them both the benefit of the doubt.

The fact that Evans has been more circumspect in recent interviews suggests that once he knew the truth, he course-corrected. Give him credit for cosponsoring , which would enable people working in the U.S. illegally to receive legal status and continue to work here, if they meet certain conditions. It would also speed up the asylum process and allow immigrants brought here illegally as young children and those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to obtain legal status. It is the kind of practical, humanitarian, compromise immigration reform we need. Similar legislation was blocked in 2024 by then-candidate Donald Trump, who wanted to keep the contentious issue bleeding throughout the election year. There is no reason it should not pass now.

But Evans should go a step further. He should use his unique family background to champion humane treatment of illegal immigrants, even though it risks the ire of the president and the far right. Every person, citizen or immigrant, here legally or not, deserves due process. Too few Republicans are willing to champion this constitutional guarantee. If Evans can lead on this issue, maybe others will follow.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday columnist for The Denver Post.

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This year, my wife and I are paying a huge tax bill. I appreciate the services our government provides for not just ourselves but for everyone else.

We appreciate clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. We appreciate uncontaminated food to eat. We appreciate the house that provides us shelter from the elements. And we understand it takes a lot of work from agencies and services we take for granted.

But what I am sick of is the leader of our country who won’t pay his fair share of taxes, just like many other rich people. I resent the fact that he has fired so many federal workers who provide services that protect us. I resent that he is shattering agencies that have worked for years so that we Americans can live day to day and not worry about the very same governmental structures for which I pay taxes.

This president and his political party are tearing our government apart when they should be upholding our way of life.

I am sick of it. If I paid a high price for a particular service, I expect the service to live up to its promises, and so far, I am not getting what I paid for.

Provide the service or give me a refund.

M. Rodriguez, Aurora

What happened to the fiscal conservative?

Re: “Senate Republicans approve framework for Trump tax breaks”, April 6, 2025

It has not been that long ago that many of our congressmen and senators bragged about being fiscal conservatives. But the chat now seems to be about tax breaks. How many trillions of dollars is the national debt? How much money is being freed up by whatever methods are being used? And the talk is about tax breaks (for people who don’t need it) rather than reducing the debt. Really?

Anybody who calls themselves a “fiscal conservative” and goes along with the tax cuts is a liar!

Arthur David Hubbard, Dacono

Tariffs: Trusting politicians to micromanage the economy

Re: “Dems dislike ‘chaos’ but OK with some tariffs,” April 13 news story

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claims (without evidence) that “Tariffs are an important tool in our economic toolbox.”

But tariffs impede Americans’ access to the affordable goods they want to buy. Tariffs violate the right of Americans to decide for themselves who to buy from. Tariffs are social engineering designed to coercively change Americans’ buying patterns.

Tariffs harm our economy and are only good for special interests. President Joe Biden’s targeted tariffs forced Americans to pay more for solar cells, electric vehicles, and electric vehicle batteries for the benefit of U.S. manufacturing special interests. Not only did Biden’s tariffs harm the economy by making these goods more expensive, but they also harmed the environment by making solar cells and electric vehicles less competitive with fossil fuels.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that President Trump’s 2018 targeted steel tariffs cost created. That’s a terrible return on investment since the median annual wage for structural iron and steel workers was .
Tariffs stimulate the lobbyist industry due to businesses lobbying for tariff exemptions for themselves, but not for their competitors. Tariffs, therefore, encourage cronyism and corruption.

Believing that politicians are good at micromanaging the economy with targeted tariffs is the same as believing in the magical powers of pixie dust. It doesn’t happen in reality.

Chuck Wright, Westminster

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Longtime radio host and conservative activist Jeff Crank, 57, hopes to answer the question in the Nov. 5 election with a deep crimson result befitting the historic GOP stronghold, which now covers most of El Paso County.

Democrat River Gassen, 27, an instructor and research assistant at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs’ BioFrontiers Center, hopes to turn recent streaks of blue there into an azure upset — and, in the process, become the district¶¶Òőap first-ever Democratic member of Congress.

For nine terms, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn has reliably won reelection, representing the state’s second-largest city. He announced in January that he wouldn’t seek another term, opening the seat for a fresh contest — though it’s still a district the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as “solid Republican.”

On issues typically at the top of voters’ concerns, the two fall along expected partisan lines.

Gassen lists federal protections for abortion rights as a top priority; Crank describes himself as “a proud pro-life advocate.”

“I’m getting a little tired of hearing this ‘states’ rights’ narrative,” Gassen said. “I don’t think states’ rights really has anything to do with women’s rights. I think it’s just kind of an escape so people can say they’re pro-life, so to speak, without trying to sound sexist.”

On immigration, Crank called the bipartisan border bill that died in Congress earlier this year “a ruse.” He advocates for more aggressive deportations of convicted criminals and stricter limits on how many people can cross the border.

Gassen supported that bill as a way to provide resources for asylum seekers and border security, though she said she’d rather it be “a little bit more progressive” by focusing on boosting resources to process asylum requests.

“I know people want to say, ‘Are you for or against mass deportations?’ ” Crank said in a recent interview. “Starting with the criminals who came here, the terrorists, others — let’s figure out who those people are, and let’s get them the heck out of here. They don’t belong in the United States. Let’s start with that, and then we’ll keep working through the list.”

On economics, Gassen defends the Inflation Reduction Act, a signature accomplishment from President Joe Biden’s administration, and the strategy of using government spending to spur economic activity. Crank sees government spending as spurring the recent inflation crisis.

Crank calls himself a Republican close to the mold of former President Ronald Reagan, while Gassen says her politics most closely align with those of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Three other candidates are on the ballot: Christopher Mitchell, affiliated with the American Constitution Party; Christopher Sweat, from the Forward Party; and Michael Keith Vance, a Libertarian.

Among the major-party candidates, the district’s recent history suggests Crank has a distinct advantage. Lamborn, the outgoing Republican, is retiring following the narrowest general election win of his career: A 16-percentage-point shellacking of his Democratic opponent in 2022.

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump by 11 percentage points while losing the state by a 13.5-point margin to Biden.

But both candidates see a crossroads in this election.

Gassen sees a strong local Democratic ticket, from state House races to county commissioner bids, as a group effort that supports all the candidates. The district has been seeing pockets of blue, particularly in Colorado Springs, that just haven’t spread to federal elections yet, Gassen said.

It¶¶Òőap a presidential year, too, which typically bodes well for Democrats, and voters in Colorado will be seeing abortion on the ballot with Amendment 79, which could galvanize abortion-rights supporters who want to elevate protections to the state constitution. Anecdotally, she says she’s seeing fewer Trump flags than years past.

“I do feel like even the Republicans here in Colorado Springs are tired of the Trump party,” Gassen said.

Crank, for his part, steers away from the label of MAGA Republican — short for the Trump campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” — even as he has celebrated Trump’s endorsement and many of the former president¶¶Òőap achievements as he seeks the White House again. In June, Republican primary voters likewise soundly rejected Dave Williams, Crank’s primary opponent — and the state GOP’s chairman — who tied himself as closely as possible to Trump.

Crank instead styles himself as a “happy warrior,” closer to the style of Reagan and former U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, the last Republican to win a statewide federal election in Colorado, than the combative conservatism of today.

The race also proves a test for the future of the party in Colorado, he said. Historically, for Republicans, winning a statewide victory has meant running up the tally in El Paso County. If Crank loses, the party’s “in pretty, pretty bad shape” across the board, he said. A loss would also disprove his theory of positive, principled conservatism.

“The Republican Party has gotten away, in some cases, from nominating good candidates — from nominating candidates that can appeal to the voters of Colorado,” Crank said. “I would argue you don’t have to give up your principles to do that.”

Four years ago, Colorado voters could have seen a wide array of Democratic contenders in the flesh in the weeks leading up to the March 2020 primary, including Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg and Tulsi Gabbard, while Joe Biden hit up donors in Denver. Several campaigns had paid staff on the ground here for weeks or months.

Even then-President Donald Trump stopped by for a visit just weeks before the primary, landing in Colorado Springs for a rally at the Broadmoor World Arena.

“This election is not going to be confused with past presidential primaries in Colorado,” said Eric Sondermann, an independent political analyst. “This year strikes me as a going-through-the-motions exercise.”

Ahead of Haley’s rally in Centennial, her campaign on Monday announced her “Colorado state leadership team” — a list of prominent supporters who will try to build support as primary voters return their ballots in the next week. Among them are former U.S. attorneys Troy Eid and Jason Dunn; Tom Norton, a former state Senate president and a former Greeley mayor; Todd Chapman, a former diplomat and U.S. ambassador; and Wendy Buxton-Andrade, a Prowers County commissioner.

But in terms of paid staff, Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, has a minimal state operation, with one staffer on the ground.

The reasons for Colorado’s quiet campaign season begin with the slate of candidates on the Republican side being effectively winnowed down early to a David-and-Goliath battle between Haley and Trump. And despite polls showing that voters have concerns about of 81-year-old President Biden, who’s less than four years older than Trump, no serious Democratic contender has arisen to take him on.

The other major reason is that as Colorado has continued to drift to the left — fully shedding its status as a swing state — candidates can’t afford to waste time or money in a place where their political prospects are already evident.

“Nobody should be spending money in Colorado when all those other swing states need to get their infrastructure built,” said Ian Silverii, a longtime Democratic strategist, referring to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and other states likely to be in play in November. “A Biden win in Colorado is all but guaranteed — the question is by what margin.”

Biden bested Trump in 2020 by 13.5 percentage points.

Sheena Kadi, a spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said she was not aware of a campaign office or a state director for Biden’s reelection effort in Colorado. The same goes for Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman who’s the best-known Democrat taking on the president.

Biden was last in Colorado in November, when he promoted recent economic investments at a wind tower factory in Pueblo and attended a private fundraiser in Cherry Hills Village.

“Not speaking for either campaign — campaigns take three finite things: time, money, and resources,” Kadi said. “They are making the best decisions they can with the information they’ve got.”

If Trump wins the nomination, whether he will build the kind of multifaceted general election campaign organization he assembled in Colorado in 2016, during his first presidential run, is yet to be seen.

“Biden and Trump are pretty confident where they are in the presidential primaries,” said Dick Wadhams, a former chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

Colorado allows unaffiliated voters to participate in the party primary of their choosing. Those voters received mail ballots for both parties but may return only one of them.

Wadhams said perhaps the most interesting thing about Colorado’s March 5 primary is the “noncommitted delegate” option at the bottom of the listed Democratic candidates on the ballot. While Kadi, with the state Democratic Party, said that option was added to the ballot because “Democrats are the party of choice, the party of empowering people,” others see it differently.

“It will allow voters who are concerned with Biden’s physical and mental state to vote for someone else,” Wadhams said. “It’s a potential embarrassment for Biden if that gets a significant number of votes.”

Kristi Burton Brown, another former chair of the Colorado GOP, called the uncommitted line a potential “protest vote” for disaffected Democrats.

“They’re trying to gauge how much dissatisfaction is out there,” Brown said of the Democratic Party.

Fellow Democrat David Skaggs, who represented Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District in Washington, D.C., for a dozen years, wrote in a column in The Post last week that had cast his ballot for “uncommitted.”

“It is the ballot option that could lead to an open convention, where Democrats can pick a ticket that could more assuredly save the nation from the disaster of a second Trump administration,” he wrote.

ŽĄČÔÌę showed Biden with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. But Silverii said that whatever headwinds Biden is facing nationally, he won’t lose Colorado in November.

That’s because of the state’s large contingent of unaffiliated voters, who broke hard for the president in 2020.

“Unaffiliated voters have proven twice now that they will not vote for Trump — and in increasing numbers,” he said.

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Biden’s original plan would have canceled up to $20,000 in federal student loans for 43 million people. Of those, 20 million would have had their remaining student debt erased completely.

With repayments set to begin in October, many borrowers are wondering if they still have to pay. Here’s what to know about where the new Biden plan stands.

Under the proposed approach, the White House is now planning to use the Higher Education Act of 1965 — a sweeping federal law that governs the student loan program — to bring about relief for student borrowers.

Biden said the authority of the act will provide “the best path that remains to provide as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.”

The law includes a provision giving the education secretary authority to “compromise, waive or release” student loans.

In its previous attempt to forgive student loans, Biden’s White House appealed to a bipartisan 2003 law dealing with national emergencies, known as the HEROES Act, for the authority to cancel the debt. The court¶¶Òőap 6-3 decision, with conservative justices in the majority, said the administration needed Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program.

So far, it remains unclear which loan holders will qualify and how much of their debt will be forgiven. To figure it out, the Education Department will go through a process known as negotiated rulemaking.

Hours after the Supreme Court decision, President Joe Biden announced a 12-month grace period to help borrowers who struggle after payments restart. Biden said borrowers can and should make payments during the first 12 months after payments resume, but, if they don’t, they won’t be at risk of default and it won’t hurt their credit scores. Interest will resume in September, however, and it will accrue whether borrowers make payments or not. Biden reiterated that it is not the same as the student loan pause, adding that “if you can pay your monthly bills, you should.”

Experts at the Student Borrower Protection Center and Institute of Student Loan Advisors encourage borrowers not to begin to make payments again until the fall, when interest starts up again and the pause lifts, since there is no penalty for not doing so during the freeze. Instead, any savings that would have gone to payments can earn interest in those remaining few months.

Finally, after the year-long grace period, if you’re in a short-term financial bind, you may qualify for deferment or forbearance — allowing you to temporarily suspend payment.

To determine whether deferment or forbearance are good options for you, contact your loan servicer. One thing to note: Interest still accrues during deferment or forbearance. Both can also affect future loan forgiveness options. Depending on the conditions of your deferment or forbearance, it may make sense to continue paying the interest during the payment suspension.

Following the year-long on-ramp offered by the Biden administration, if you don’t make student loan payments, you’ll risk delinquency and default, which will harm your credit score and potentially lock you out of other aid and benefits down the line.

The Biden administration is also working to make a clearer path for borrowers considering bankruptcy.

In November, the Justice Department announced a process with new guidelines for students with federal loans who are unable to pay. Under the new guidance, debtors will fill out an “attestation form,” which the government will use to determine whether or not to recommend a discharge of debt. If borrowers’ expenses exceed their income and other criteria are met, the government will be more likely to recommend a full or partial discharge of loans.

Get ready to wait.

The overall idea is to create a new federal rule by gathering together lots of people with different views and hashing out the details. The goal is to reach a consensus, but the Education Department doesn’t need it to move forward.

It¶¶Òőap possible the Biden administration will go through the process, fail to reach a consensus but still proceed with whatever it decides is the best cancellation plan.

Still, this could take a long time. The absolute minimum for something like this would be about a year, according to Michael Brickman, who was part of multiple rounds of negotiated rulemaking as an education official for the Trump administration. There’s bureaucratic red tape to navigate, and the process is designed to slow things down and force a deliberate negotiation.

The process of negotiated rulemaking requires a period for written feedback from the public, a public hearing (a virtual hearing is scheduled for July 18) and negotiating sessions.

Given that the administration is just starting the process, Brickman said it¶¶Òőap possible it could take up to two years.

Asked why the Education Department didn’t try this route from the start, Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged Friday that it “does take longer.”

That¶¶Òőap up for debate.

In a 2021 memo, the former top education lawyer for the Obama administration cast doubt on the president¶¶Òőap authority to enact mass student loan cancellation. The memo, from Charlie Rose, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and obtained by the AP, warned that “the more persuasive analyses tend to support the conclusion that the Executive Branch likely does not have the unilateral authority to engage in mass student debt cancellation.” Instead, it found that the education secretary’s authority is “limited to case-by-case review and, in some cases, only to nonperforming loans.”

Some advocates had been urging Biden go this route all along, and the White House says it¶¶Òőap confident the plan will work. But it¶¶Òőap almost certain to face legal challenges. The Education Department has used the Higher Education Act to cancel student loans before, but never at the scale being discussed now. Backers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren have said the legal authority is clear, but lawyers for the Trump administration concluded in 2021 that mass student loan forgiveness was illegal. It could wind up being a gray area that courts need to sort out.

Brickman, who is now an adjunct fellow at AEI, a conservative think tank, predicts a similar fate to Biden’s previous plan. “The Supreme Court has told them no, and yet they’re undeterred,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a population out there that really admires that. But at some point the Constitution is the Constitution, and you have to just kind of accept that.”

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The law Biden cited, the Higher Education Act of 1965, contains a provision — Section 1082 of Title 20 of the U.S. Code — that gives the secretary of education the authority to “compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”

Some proponents of student debt relief had proposed that the Biden administration invoke this law as the basis of the president¶¶Òőap original loan cancellation program. In February 2021, for example, a group of Democrats including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, introduced a resolution urging that step.

But as the COVID-19 pandemic swelled, the Biden administration instead used a law giving the secretary of education power to “waive or modify” federal student loan provisions in a national emergency. (A law passed by Congress to address the pandemic, the HEROES Act, may have made that route more attractive to policymakers, because it also exempted some agency actions from the usual rule-making and notice-and-comment processes.)

On Friday, in a lawsuit brought by Republican-controlled states, the six Republican-appointed justices ruled that the administration had stretched that law too far.

Should Biden’s new plan face a similar lawsuit, as seems likely as a matter of political reality, it would ultimately come before the same Supreme Court — raising the question of whether the wording differences between the statutes would make any difference.

In the majority ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts said the words “waive or modify” could not be legitimately interpreted as conferring the power to cancel debt at a massive scale, and he invoked a conservative doctrine that courts should strike down agency actions that raise “major questions” if Congress did not clearly and unambiguously grant such authority.

While Biden said he thought the Supreme Court on Friday had gotten the law wrong, he maintained that the new approach was “legally sound” and said that he had directed his team to move as quickly as possible. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had taken the first step to start the process, the president said.

Biden predicted that using the Higher Education Act would take longer than his original plan but said, “In my view, it¶¶Òőap the best path that remains to providing as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.”

Warren in early 2021 also released a seven-page paper from September 2020 by Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center, which she had commissioned, laying out an argument in greater detail for how the Higher Education Act could be used to cancel student debt.

This article originally appeared in .

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Through an executive order, federal student loan borrowers who meet income requirements will see $10,000 in debt canceled. If the borrower received a Pell Grant to attend school, the forgiven amount rises to $20,000.

About 43 million Americans have federal student loan debt. The White House says the plan cancels the full remaining balance for 20 million of them. Income requirements block relief for high-income households: Individuals must have earned less than $125,000 in the previous tax year, while married couples filing jointly must earn less than $250,000.

About 95% of borrowers will benefit from cancellation, Biden said in a speech Wednesday. And about 90% of the benefits of cancellation will go to borrowers who earn less than $75,000, the White House said.

“There’s a lot more work to be done, and tens of millions still have student loans, but for the estimated 20 million who will be debt-free, it will be life-changing,” says Mike Pierce, executive director and co-founder of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “It shows that when people with student loans demand better from their government, the government listens to them, and that¶¶Òőap a good thing.”

The Biden administration also announced the seventh extension of payment forbearance. Borrowers with federal student loans have not been required to make payments since March 2020. If the forbearance isn’t extended past Dec. 31, borrowers will have gone 33 months without a payment.

Lastly, the Education Department proposed a new income-driven repayment plan that would reduce future payments and limit the growth of balances if payments are current.

But the plan doesn’t include all the details borrowers need to know.

“This is essentially a bare-bones announcement, so there’s still a lot of unanswered questions,” says Betsy Mayotte, president and founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors.

What we know and don’t know so far:

Whom will cancellation most benefit?

Roughly 15.2 million borrowers have debt under $10,000, according to federal data. About 1.38 million of those borrowers have been in repayment for longer than 20 years, according to an April 2021 data request to the Department of Education made by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The impact of $20,000 in forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients is hard to gauge because of the income requirements borrowers must meet to be eligible. However, the White House estimates about 60% of borrowers received this aid. Pell Grants are available for low-income students, and the White House says the majority of students with Pell Grants come from families with incomes under $60,000 per year. These borrowers tend to have higher debt than non-Pell recipients, $4,500 more on average, according to the Institute of College Access and Success, a nonprofit organization.

“From a racial-equity perspective, targeting more relief to Pell Grant recipients goes a long way toward advancing racial equity, which we welcome, but we can always do more on that front,” says Kyle Southern, associate vice president of higher education quality at The Institute for College Access and Success.

About 23 million borrowers will have debt remaining, the White House estimates.

How can I apply for the forgiveness program?

Both the $10,000 and $20,000 forgiveness amounts are means-tested. But the Department of Education doesn’t have income information for all borrowers at the ready. It estimates nearly 8 million borrowers will be eligible for relief automatically based on the current information it has.

An application will be required to access the forgiveness and will be made available by the end of 2022. The department said it would be announcing further details on how borrowers can receive forgiveness in the weeks ahead.

“They want to give themselves time to implement this,” says Mayotte.

This red tape means borrowers could slip through the cracks. Some borrowers inevitably won’t follow through or will submit erroneously. Non-filers won’t qualify and others won’t be reached. The Education Department doesn’t have email addresses for 25% of borrowers in default, according to a January 2022 Government Accountability Office report.

“We are concerned that a lot of folks who may not be as aware or plugged in will slip through the cracks,” says Southern.

How soon will I get relief?

It¶¶Òőap unclear how quickly the Education Department will be able to deliver cancellation. It¶¶Òőap also quite possible, experts say, that there will be legal challenges to the executive order.

“This is something that might be struck down and never actually be implemented,” says Lanae Erickson, senior vice president for social policy, education and politics for Third Way, a nonpartisan think tank. “The timeline of all of this seems very rickety. There are going to be court challenges. If [Public Service Loan Forgiveness] has been any example, we know it¶¶Òőap going to take a while for people to be processed. It is not going to be instantaneous for borrowers to see this relief.”

The window for cancellation will be one year from the start date of the application process.

What if I owe more than $10,000 in federal loans?

Any amount you owe above $10,000 — or $20,000 if you qualify for relief as a former Pell Grant recipient — still remains. You’ll have to continue making payments on your debt. Payments are set to restart for all federal student loan borrowers after Dec. 31.

Those whose debt is not wiped clean now can pay off their remaining debts more quickly, reducing the amount of interest paid.

What if I already paid off my student loans?

The debt forgiveness only applies to borrowers with current existing federal student loans disbursed by June 30, 2022. There are no refunds.

I’m headed to college or a current student. Will my loans be forgiven, too?

Yes, but only on loans disbursed by June 30, 2022.

“Nobody should be taking out a student loan tomorrow because of what they heard today thinking it¶¶Òőap going to be forgiven,” says Mayotte.

I had a Pell Grant in college. How do I get relief?

Borrowers are eligible for up to $20,000 relief if they once received Pell Grants to attend school. It¶¶Òőap unclear exactly how these borrowers will need to prove this.

You can find out if you received a Pell Grant by logging onto the or using your FSA ID. Your previous aid information should be on the Financial Aid Review page.

Will parent PLUS loans be included?

Yes, parents who took out PLUS loans to help their child attend college are eligible for forgiveness. It¶¶Òőap unclear if parents would qualify for Pell Grant-related relief if their child received a Pell Grant.

Are graduate loans included?

Yes, unsubsidized direct graduate loans and graduate PLUS loan debt are both included.

What if I have an FFEL loan?

Borrowers with Federal Family Education Loan debt owned by the government will see $10,000 in cancellation. But if your FFEL loan is commercially owned by a private company, it¶¶Òőap unclear if your loan will be eligible. Contact your loan servicer to determine which type of debt you have.

What if I have a private loan?

Private student loan borrowers will not see debt cancellation. If you’re having difficulty repaying your debt, contact your lender to find out what options are available, such as forbearance or temporarily lowered payments.

I have multiple federal loans. Which ones will be forgiven?

We don’t know this yet.

What if my loans are in default?

The Biden plan did not address cancellation for loans that are in default.

It has introduced a program that provides a path to good standing for 7.5 million borrowers but has not provided details on eligibility for cancellation for borrowers currently in default.

Will my forgiven debt be taxed?

Not at the federal level. A provision under the American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law by Biden in March, made any student loan debt forgiveness tax-free from December 2020 through Dec. 31, 2025. But that applies only to federal income taxes. Taxation at the state level could vary.

How will this change my monthly payment?

We don’t know this yet.

What if I can’t afford the remaining balance?

Receiving debt cancellation may have put a dent in your overall burden, but it doesn’t immediately help if you still can’t afford your monthly payment when the pause ends Dec. 31. Your best option is to contact your servicer about alternate repayment plans or an additional pause.

You could enroll in an income-driven repayment plan that sets your payments at a portion of your income and extends the length of time to repay your debt. Or you might need to take a payment pause entirely, though interest will still collect and be added to the total you owe when you restart payments.

What¶¶Òőap the deal with the new repayment plan?

The Education Department additionally revealed its new proposed income-driven repayment plan — a fifth plan to complement the four existing ones — to cap payments at 5% of a borrower’s income. It¶¶Òőap unclear when this new payment plan might go into effect.

The current most accessible income-driven repayment plan is called Revised Pay As You Earn, or REPAYE, and caps payments at 10% of a borrower’s income. After 20 or 25 years the remaining debt balance is forgiven.

The new rule would reduce the cap and lower the time to forgiveness to 10 years of payments for those who originally borrowed $12,000 or less to attend college. And it would fully cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest so a borrower won’t see their balance grow due to interest while they’re making regular payments.

Under existing income-driven plans, growing interest can make it difficult for borrowers to make a dent in their balance even while they’re paying each month.

Will my credit be affected?

Your total student loan debt does not negatively affect your credit scores as long as you make payments on time.

Some borrowers whose debt is eliminated could actually see a small decrease in their credit scores, which sometimes happens when a line of credit closes. The longer your credit history, the better, and your student loan might be your oldest credit account. If your student loan account closes, your credit history will be shorter and that can have a slight negative impact on your credit score.

However, most loan approvals are dependent on your , not just your credit history. Debt-to-income ratio represents the total of your monthly obligations, divided by your monthly income.

If $10,000 in forgiveness eliminates a loan payment altogether, your DTI would improve. If it simply lowers your balance — but not your payment —  your DTI would not improve.

The Biden administration and the student debt crisis

The move by Biden comes after many months of speculation and deliberation between his administration and Congress as to who has the power to cancel student loan debt, how much debt should be canceled —  or if it should happen at all.

Student debt has been referred to as a crisis in the U.S. Between 1985-86 and 2017-18, college costs have grown 114%, adjusted for inflation, according to the most recent available data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Wages adjusted for inflation, meanwhile, have barely budged over the same period — just under a 19% increase, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Nearly two-thirds (62%) of college graduates in the class of 2019 had student debt, according to The Institute for College Access and Success. The average amount they owed was $28,950.

The Biden administration has prioritized correcting the shortcomings of existing forgiveness programs resulting in debt cancellation totaling $32 billion for 1.6 million borrowers. That includes:

• $10 billion for more than 175,000 public servants through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
• $9 billion for more than 425,000 borrowers who have a total and permanent disability.
• $13 billion for 1 million borrowers whose institutions defrauded them or closed before they could get their degree.

“The president does what every other person in America does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against COVID but does his job,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told MSNBC late in the afternoon on Thursday.

It was a day that began with Biden’s COVID-19 results and included repeated assurances over the coming hours that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue.

Biden, in a blazer and Oxford shirt, recorded a video from the White House balcony telling people: “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. And, in the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. It¶¶Òőap going to be OK.”

“Keeping busy!” he also tweeted.

On Friday, Biden was scheduled to meet virtually with his economic team and senior advisors to discuss congressional priorities.

It was all part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get COVID and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.

The message was crafted to alleviate voters’ concerns about Biden’s health — at 79, he’s the oldest person ever to be president. And it was aimed at demonstrating to the country that the pandemic is far less of a threat than it was before Biden took office, thanks to widespread vaccines and new therapeutic drugs.

Conveying that sentiment on Day 1 of Biden’s coronavirus experience virus wasn’t always easy, though.

In a lengthy briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said repeatedly that the White House had been as transparent as possible about the president¶¶Òőap health. But she parried with reporters over specifics. And when pressed about where Biden might have contracted the virus, she responded, “I don’t think that that matters, right? I think what matters is we prepared for this moment.”

Jean-Pierre and White House COVID-⁠19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha didn’t fully answer questions about whether Biden began isolating as soon as he started experiencing symptoms on Wednesday night, as federal guidelines suggest, or did so following his positive test the next day. Jha declined to speculate on some aspects of the president¶¶Òőap prognosis, characterizing the questions as hypotheticals.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said it¶¶Òőap important for Americans to know they must remain careful about the virus, which continues to kill hundreds of people daily.

“That¶¶Òőap the balance that we have to strike,” Osterholm said. “The president of the United States will do very well. But that may not be true for everyone.”

Biden’s first-day symptoms were mild in large part because he’s fully vaccinated and boosted, according to a statement issued by his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor. The president also is taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the disease.

Jha said Biden’s case was being prioritized, meaning it will likely take less than a week for sequencing to determine which variant of the virus Biden contracted. Omicron’s highly contagious BA.5 substrain is responsible for 78% of new COVID-19 infections reported in the U.S. last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data released Tuesday.

Jean-Pierre said first lady Jill Biden was in close contact with the president, but she declined to discuss others who also might have been exposed, citing privacy reasons. Biden had traveled to Massachusetts a day earlier to promote efforts to combat climate change and flew on Air Force One with several Democratic leaders, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

A White House official confirmed that Vice President Kamala Harris was also in close contact with Biden, and Klain said he was too.

Klain, who said he hoped the president¶¶Òőap testing positive a “teachable moment” for the country, said the White House wasn’t aware of any positive COVID results that were linked to the president¶¶Òőap case.

During her briefing, Jean-Pierre bristled at suggestions the Biden administration wasn’t being much more forthcoming with information about the president¶¶Òőap illness than that of his predecessor, Donald Trump. The former president contracted COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, before vaccines were available, and was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three nights.

“I wholeheartedly disagree,” Jean-Pierre said of comparison. “We are doing this very differently — very differently — than the last administration.”

Asked about the possibility Biden might need to be hospitalized, Jha stressed that the president was “doing well” and added that there were “obviously a lot of resources available here at the White House to take care of him.”

“Walter Reed is always on standby for presidents. That¶¶Òőap always an option,” he added. “That¶¶Òőap true whether the president had COVID or not.”

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, said it was good for the White House to send the message that Biden can keep working even after testing positive.

“That shows that it¶¶Òőap business as usual,” Wen said.

Jean-Pierre’s predecessor, Jen Psaki, noted that White House officials have “been preparing for this probably for several months now, given the percentage of people in the country who have tested positive.”

“What they need to do over the next couple of days is show him working and show him still active and serving as president and I’m certain they’ll likely do that,” Psaki, who left her post as White House press secretary in May, said on MSNBC, where she’s becoming a commentator.

Biden plans to continue to isolate until he tests negative, the White House said.

Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said that could mean he’s “out of commission from interacting with people for at least eight to 10 days.”

“This could go on easily for a couple of weeks, but the good thing is they are going to monitor him very carefully,” Topol said. “That is what we should be doing for everyone so that we don’t keep playing into the virus’ hands, causing more spread when it¶¶Òőap already hyper-spreadable.”