Keystone Today

U.S. House and Senate Republicans recently requested that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate the cost for President Joe Biden’s recently announced loan forgiveness plan, which came back with a $420 billion price tag.

“This is an unprecedented act of peacetime fiscal recklessness,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote on Sept. 26. The board previously criticized Biden’s plan in August, when it was first announced, as well.

The CBO stated on its website that Director Phillip Swagel wrote a letter to ranking Republicans in the House and Senate Education Committees on the matter, which was in response to their request for a cost estimate.

Fortune reported that President Biden has cancelled more student debt than any other president, noting that there has been $20 billion in forgiveness since he took office. This is slightly more than 1% of federal student debt, which sits at $1.7 trillion with 45 million borrowers. On Aug. 24, Biden announced that $10,000 in federal student loan debt would be cancelled for those making $125,000 or less per year, as reported by Fox News. Borrowers who had Pell Grants could have up to $20,000 in student debt forgiven. Biden also extended the payment freezes stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic through the end of the year.

In Pennsylvania, U.S. Senate candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) has been an advocate for completely cancelling student debt.

In April, he tweeted, “Pennsylvania has the third-highest rate of student loan debt in [America]. If we can spend hundreds of billions to bail out Wall Street, we can take action to cancel student loan debt."

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion piece said that the CBO’s “horrifying political math” adds up to $420 billion, which includes $20 billion from Biden’s unilateral three-month extension of the student loan payment moratorium. The piece goes on to say that $400 billion will be needed to cover cancelling the student debt forgiveness announced in August.

However, The Wall Street Journal editorial board also said that this $420 billion estimate could be much higher, as it doesn’t include the president’s steps to ease the federal income-based repayment plan terms that are on top of the loan forgiveness.

“Independent analysts have estimated that cost at $150 billion or more, which would take the cost to $570 billion,” the WSJ editorial board wrote.

According to the most recent Senate Opportunity Fund poll, taken between Sept. 12 and 15, involving 1,600 general election voters around the country, 60% of Americans agree with the statement, "President Biden used student loan debt cancellations to buy votes from young voters just before the midterm elections in November. It was a political decision.”