President Joe Biden's student loan cancellations divide Arizona congressional delegation

Arizona's congressional delegation had mixed reaction Wednesday to President Joe Biden's announcement of student loan cancellations for millions of low- and moderate-income Americans.

The split fell largely along party lines.

Biden announced $10,000 in federal student loan cancellations for borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year. For Pell Grant students, who make up 60% of student loan borrowers in the country, that number rises to $20,000. It will benefit 45 million Americans who currently owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student loans.

Biden spent much of the summer mulling over whether to act on student loan cancellations, with rampant inflation that has only just begun to slow appearing to jeopardize the plan. But now Biden is acting on a core campaign promise of his 2020 presidential run.

Reps. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., celebrated the measure. Biden's executive action is the removal of “a massive burden off the backs of millions of borrowers, including so many Black, Latino, and first-gen college students,” Gallego said.

Grijalva on Twitter pointed out what he sees as a double standard in Republican responses to the loan cancellations. The GOP, he said, didn't complain when President Donald Trump's administration “handed out trillions in unpaid tax cuts to billionaires & wealthy corporations.”

Student loan forgiveness: Here's everything Arizonans need to know

House Republicans from Arizona, wary of more increases in federal spending, lambasted the move.

“Biden wants to force every American who has already paid off their student debt, didn’t even take on student loan debt in the first place, or decided not to attend college to foot a $300-$980 billion bill to pay off the student debt of Americans making up to $125K/year,” Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., tweeted Wednesday. “Insanity!”

Unlike congressional Democrats' hallmark Inflation Reduction Act, which supporters expect will be entirely paid for by increased corporate tax rates and strengthened IRS enforcement, the federal government will be in effect borrowing to shift student loan burdens away from the borrower. It's a move that will, however modestly, tick inflation up.

A Penn Wharton Budget Model study found that a student loan cancellation program that would forgive $10,000 per borrower could cost $300 billion in its first year. Doubled cancellations for Pell Grant recipients, an apparent curveball, has the group recalculating an even higher price tag.

“This administration’s blatant disregard for basic economics is putting future generations at frightening risk,” Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., tweeted. “They raised your taxes, spent $3.8 trillion of your money, and now have a plan to cancel student loans that will cost hard-working Americans another $400-$600 billion.”

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., cast the measure as a "gimmick" by the Biden administration to curry favor with young voters ahead of the midterm elections.

“Biden's student loan payoff scheme seems like an expensive way to buy the votes of middle-class liberals who financed useless, woke college degrees,” Biggs said. “As if they weren't already going to vote Democrat.”

On Twitter, Gallego clashed with Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and the GOP House Judiciary Committee members.

“If you take out a loan, you pay it back,” the GOP committee members account said on Twitter. “Period.”

“Not if you’re Donald Trump,” Gallego responded. “Yet, you still support him.”

Gregory Svirnovskiy is a Pulliam Fellow at The Arizona Republic. You can follow him on Twitter @gsvirnovskiy or reach him by email at gregory.svirnovskiy@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Student loan forgiveness divides Arizona lawmakers. What to know