The lesson from Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness? Go big or go home | Hamilton Nolan

Biden will get backlash from Republicans whether he does a little or a lot - so you might as well do a lot

Politics is not like regular life; it's worse. Things that are held as treasured virtues in the normal world are often political liabilities. We've all just been served with a shining example of how reflexive moderation - which is good when estimating measurements for recipes, or having drinks at a work party - becomes the tendency of a political fool. The wellbeing of countless Americans has long been sacrificed on the altar of moderation by the Democratic party, and all the Democrats win for it is maximal disgust.

This week Joe Biden announced that he will be canceling $10,000 in federal student loan debt (or $20,000 for Pell grant recipients) for people who earn under $125,000 a year. This policy is both unquestionably wise, and unquestionably a half-measure. There has long been a movement on the left to cancel all student debt, and even Democratic stalwarts like Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren were pushing for the cancellation of $50,000 in debt. Joe Biden was pulled towards this action, in large part, by his inability to get other, bigger economic policies through Congress. But even in taking unilateral action, he has succumbed to the overwhelming tendency of Clintonian Democrats to cut any good policy idea in half and call it political wisdom.

Hamilton Nolan is a writer based in New York