Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is Robert Verbrugan. He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of

National Review. He's been covering public policy and social science issues for City Journal

since he joined MI last summer. He recently analyzed for a city journal,

President Biden's student loan executive actions, and in our summer issue, wrote a really

terrific long-form profile of the life and work of Charles Murray. So Robert, thanks very much

for joining us. Thanks for having me. So Robert, thanks very much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So let's start with that piece you did on student debt.

The president announced last week his plan, which would cancel $10,000 in student loans

for those making, for borrowers making less than I think it was

125,000 annually and that raises ultimately to $20,000 for certain borrowers. He also

extended the current moratorium on debt payments through the end of the year and imposed

a handful of other changes.

So this decision fulfills a campaign promise and it comes after months of speculation during

which the administration picked some low-hanging fruit by forgiving the debt of students defrauded by certain institutions.

But that's not to say it was a smart move, in your view it wasn't.

So I wonder if you could sketch out your argument as you presented in that piece and develop it.

Sure.

I think the gist of it here is that this is a ton of money to spend and it's not targeted

particularly well to people who we should be sympathetic enough toward to give them federal money.

As you mentioned, the limits of the forgiveness here are $10,000 for some borrowers and up to $20,000 for people who received Pell Grants back when they went to college.

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