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The Biden administration introduced several new efforts to protect renters, make renting more affordable, and to increase fairness in the rental market.
Under the new plan, borrowers who earn less than roughly $30,600 a year would owe $0 a month on their federal student loans, effectively pausing them. A borrower who’s in a family of four and makes less than roughly $62,400 would also see their payments paused.
Over the past two years, the Biden-Harris administration and the Democratic-run House and Senate acted to lower healthcare and drug costs; fight climate change and reduce energy costs; invest in mental health care; and invest in American manufacturing and infrastructure.
The debt ceiling is a numerical limit, set by Congress, on how much money the federal government can borrow to pay its bills. Increasing the debt ceiling is a routine congressional task, but Republicans want to hold it hostage to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare, even though failing to raise the limit would cause massive economic devastation.
More than 150 of the 222 House Republicans elected in November voted to overturn the 2020 election results and/or denied the legitimacy of the outcome.
The new Republican-controlled House has thus far failed six separate times to elect a House Speaker—the first time such a debacle has occurred since 1923. Until the new Congress elects a speaker, the House cannot assign members to committees, introduce or vote on legislation, help constituents, or even swear in members.
The bill’s signing comes as Democrats and LGBTQ advocates have expressed growing fear over the possibility that the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges—which legalized gay marriage nationwide—could be overturned following the Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade earlier this year.
Between Republicans’ economic agenda, spurious investigations, and threatened impeachments, the House is looking at a busy but unproductive year.