Democratic CD-3 candidate Adam Frisch opposes 'reckless' student loan forgiveness plan

Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District Democratic nominee Adam Frisch has campaigned on beating incumbent Lauren Boebert (R-Silt), but the Aspen businessman sees eye to eye with his conservative opponent on at least one issue.

On Monday, Frisch’s campaign released a statement opposing President Joe Biden’s recent plan to cancel up to $20,000 of federal student loans for low- and middle-income Americans, a plan that Boebert has also publicly blasted.

Frisch, who was referred to as a “conservative businessman” in the statement, said that Biden’s plan is an “improper use of executive action that bypasses Congress in spending hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Frisch told the Chieftain that he has long opposed widespread action on federal student debt relief and discussed his stance with constituents while campaigning. He released the statement to clarify his stance to all voters, he said.

"I want to be very clear that I stand by what I believe in. I believe that this was the wrong thing to do for the country and it was the wrong thing to do for CD-3," Frisch said.

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Boebert, whose campaign has raised more than twice as much as Frisch's, according to the most recent campaign finance reports, has lampooned the plan to cancel a portion of student debt on Twitter and right-wing media.

"(Joe Biden) is robbing hard working Americans to pay for Karen’s daughter’s degree in lesbian dance theory,” Boebert said on Fox News over the weekend.

In his statement, Frisch emphasized the systemic issues of high costs of college.

“Rather than forgiving loans for top income-earners, we need to level the playing field. In Western and Southern Colorado, there are hundreds of thousands of hard working people who didn't have the opportunity, need, or desire to go to college whose concerns are not being addressed by this half a trillion dollar Band-Aid,” Frisch said.

Borrowers earning more than $125,000, or $250,000 if married, would not be eligible for loan forgiveness under the plan announced on Aug. 24. Pell grant recipients can have up to $20,000 forgiven, while non-Pell recipients can receive forgiveness of up to $10,000 in federal loans.

The exact cost of forgiving the debt and plan to pay for it has not been announced. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania estimated debt cancellation could cost up to $519 billion and that 75% of the benefits would go to households making less than $88,000 annually.

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Biden campaigned on student debt cancellation and has repeatedly extended the pause on student loan repayments first initiated under the Trump administration in March 2020. Under the new plan, payments will resume in January 2023.

Action on student loan relief is widely popular among young voters — a poll from Harvard University found 85% of Americans age 18-29 supported a move on debt relief. Another recent poll from NPR/Ipsos found that many supported Biden’s plan, but even more thought the government should work on making college more affordable.

Approximately 45 million people hold $1.6 trillion total in federal student loan debt, a statement from the White House said.

In Pueblo County, 60% of adults over the age of 25 have attended some college, but only 23% have a bachelor’s or higher degree, according to Census data.

Colorado State University Pueblo has the highest proportion of graduates with debt compared to other public Colorado universities, according to the Institute for College Access and Success, which reported 73% of CSU Pueblo graduates in 2020 carried an average of $31,267 in debt.

Biden’s debt relief plan has also been criticized by some moderate Democrats and widely scorned by Republicans.

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who is up for re-election, said in a statement last week that “the administration should have further targeted the relief, and proposed a way to pay for this plan” but detailed Bennet's previous efforts for “long-term solutions” to student loans and the educational system.

Staff from Sen. John Hickenlooper’s office did not respond to a request for comment prior to the Chieftain's Monday press deadline.

At a virtual forum for the major party primary candidates in June, Puebloan Sol Sandoval was the only candidate who talked about personal experience with student debt.

Frisch told the Chieftain that he graduated from the University of Colorado in 1990 and was "lucky" that he didn't need to take out loans. He said that working in high school and college helped him stay out of debt.

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Sandoval lost to Frisch in the Democratic primary by a few hundred votes.

In a statement to the Chieftain, Sandoval — who joined Frisch's campaign as a special adviser last month — did not directly address Frisch’s stance but said that “we need to, across the board, address the root cause of an education system that is completely unaffordable.”

“My parents had to work multiple jobs to provide me with a good, quality education,” Sandoval wrote. “It should be accessible to everyone regardless of the zip code they live in. We can go back and forth and we will all never agree with a specific amount but we should agree on the fact that education should be accessible to everyone. Our country would only benefit from having more educators, nurses, doctors, etc.”

Former Republican candidate Marina Zimmerman, who failed to qualify for the primary ballot but is still running for CD-3 as a write-in independent, said on Twitter that Frisch’s statement was “complete with Republican talking points” and said that the debt cancellation “will help the working class.”

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com or on Twitter, @annalynnfrey.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: CD-3 candidate Adam Frisch opposes 'reckless' student loan forgiveness