As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to cancel $10,000 in student debt per borrower. He called this a “critical step” to “help make it easier for working people to make ends meet.” But after winning office, Biden found it difficult to get this passed into law, given his party’s razor-thin majority in the Senate. Congress on several occasions considered including $10,000 in debt relief in multiple pieces of COVID-19 legislation and ultimately chose not to do so.

It seemed his hands were tied. Even most Democrats, including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), had long acknowledged that student debt cancellation couldn’t be done without passing a law. Actions to “cancel” student debt actually involve spending taxpayer money or requiring that taxpayers absorb the reallocated debts, and Congress has the power of the purse per the Constitution.