Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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The old cliché that nothing in life is ever free certainly applies to any action taken by the federal government. In the case of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, the axiom is true times billions.
According to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, the student loan forgiveness plan will create an additional burden of $400 billion over the next three decades, a steep price made all the steeper by the fact that the cost analysis was done after Biden announced his plan.
🚨.@USCBO estimated that the Administration’s proposal to cancel up to $10k or $20k of student debt/borrower + extend the current pause would cost $420 billion – not including the IDR changes, which could add $90–$190 billion in total costs.
A statement from @MayaMacGuineas: ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/6PMygcbKeI
— CRFB.org (@BudgetHawks) September 26, 2022
“This might be the most costly executive action in history,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “It’s unacceptable that the President would implement it without offsets and without Congressional approval. Including these actions, the President has now added nearly $4.9 trillion to ten-year federal deficits through legislation and executive actions.
“With inflation at a 40-year high and the national debt approaching record levels, we shouldn’t be adding to deficits – certainly not by executive fiat.”
As pricey as the student loan forgiveness plan might be, it’s a fraction of the spending to which the Biden administration has committed in just under two years.
The CRFB estimates that the administration has approved $4.8 trillion in new borrowing, a number that Republicans believe is directly linked to inflation and cost-of-living hikes.
“America is suffocating from inflation and President Biden and the radicals in his party keep throwing gasoline on the inflation fire!” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted.
The White House and Biden have been thus far mum on the cost of loan forgiveness. In her Monday briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said only that the program would be rolled out in October, with the emergence of the application that will be required to complete the forgiveness process.
“This is going to be an important … step forward in giving people an opportunity to save some money and put money down on a house … to start their family,” Jean-Pierre said. “Ninety percent of Americans who are going to be able to benefit from the student debt relief are making less than $75,000 a year … We believe it’s important for working families. It is important for people who are just looking for a little bit more … of help in their everyday lives.”
When confronted with the ongoing threat of a lawsuit — it’s almost a certainty that state attorneys general will seek to block the program’s implementation — Jean-Pierre deferred to the Justice Department.
“I leave that to the Department of Justice,” she said. “I know that when we announced the student loan relief, they put out on their website … kind of a legal layout of how they came to making their legal determination. So again, I’ll leave it to them.”