St. Paul, Minneapolis Mayor Melvin Carter recently thanked President Biden after his student loan had been forgiven. Carter took to X, posting a screenshot of his Mohela account, the website used to manage his debt repayment, where his account balance showed $0.00.
“Thank you, Mr. President!” Carter wrote in the post. President Biden has long touted his efforts to cancel student debt, particularly for those in challenging financial circumstances. However, some have pointed out that Carter earns a comfortable six-figure salary as St. Paul’s mayor, drawing into question his need for debt cancellation.
According to GovSalaries, “Melvin Carter III W in 2022 was employed at City of St. Paul and had an annual salary of $140,062 according to public records. This salary was 162 percent higher than the average and 172 percent higher than the median salary in City of St. Paul. City of St. Paul records show Melvin Carter III W held job of Mayor from 2020 to 2022. In year 2022 Melvin Carter III’s salary was 3,215 percent higher than average Mayor salary in the state of Minnesota.”
Early in Biden’s presidency, he consistently touted his agenda to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt to borrowers around the country. However, in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Biden v. Nebraska to strike down the plan.
The nation’s highest court determined that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, does not grant the Biden administration the authority to forgive nearly $430 billion in student loans.
However, since the ruling, Biden has not backed down from his rhetoric to continue pursuing debt relief. In a recent post on X, the president wrote, “The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me. I’ve relieved student debt for over 5 million Americans. I’m going to keep going.” The post included a video where Biden stated, “A significant number of Black borrowers. So you can chase your dreams, start a family, buy your first home, start a business and so much more.”
During several of his speeches, Biden maintained that he was actively working to circumvent the Supreme Court, where he stated that the ruling from last year hadn’t slowed him down. He further blamed MAGA Republicans for standing in his way.
Biden said, “Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt. Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled in debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”
Conservatives have blasted President Biden for his attempted mass cancellation of student debt, asserting that it is not the taxpayer’s responsibility to shoulder the $430 billion in loans that would be forgiven under his original plan. Many argue that, in principle, taxpayers should not be held liable for the financial decisions of other private citizens who perhaps could not afford a college education but took on excessive debt anyway.
Featured image credit: Lorie Shaull from Washington, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mayor_of_Saint_Paul,_Melvin_Carter,_speaking_at_the_Minnesota_DFL_election_night_party_in_St_Paul,_MN_(45766154651).jpg
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