Silver State Times

President Joe Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower, while also extending the pause on federal student loan payments through the end of the year, is receiving backlash. 

The Wall Street Journal editorial board said this move is an abuse of power by the president and will mainly affect taxpayers who otherwise have no obligation to pay off other college graduates' student debt. Nevada's Democratic U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who has historically advocated for student loan forgiveness, is now saying she doesn't agree with Biden's plan.

As reported by Fox News, Biden announced Wednesday that for borrowers making less than $125,00 a year, he will cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt. For borrowers who attended college on Pell Grants, Biden's forgiveness extends up to $20,000 in student loan debt. In addition, the president has extended pandemic-era payment freezes through the end of December.

The WSJ editorial board said the millions of Americans who will pay for the write-off are those who either didn’t go to college, have already repaid their debt, skimped and saved in order to pay for college, or chose to attend lower-cost schools to avoid a debt trap.

Biden's student-loan write-off "is an abuse of power that favors college grads at the expense of plumbers and FedEx drivers," the editorial board said. The plan will cost around $300 billion, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates, and there has reportedly "never been an executive action of this costly magnitude in peacetime."

"This is easily the worst domestic decision of his Presidency and makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college," the editorial board said.

In July 2021, Cortez Masto was part of a group of Democrats urging the Education Department to expand debt relief for student borrowers as soon as possible, according to a press release from the senator's office.

However, after the news of Biden's new forgiveness plan, Cortez Masto, who is one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection this year, told Axios, "I don't agree with today's executive action because it doesn't address the root problems that make college unaffordable."

At a press briefing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Biden does not have the power to forgive student debt. 

"REMINDER: Biden doesn't have the authority to forgive student loan debt. Even Speaker Pelosi agrees," the Senate Republican Communications Center wrote Wednesday in a Twitter post. "People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not... The President can’t do it. So that’s not even a discussion," Pelosi said, according to the tweet.