Over the weekend, former Clinton administration adviser Paul Begala slammed President Biden’s student debt cancellation plan, saying it is “bad policy, as well as bad politics.”
“For that amount of money, you could fund free pre-K for every three- and four-year-old for 10 years,” Begala said during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“You would do a lot more good for poor people, communities of color, and the underprivileged by doing pre-K. You could forgive all medical debt, which, unlike student debt, is not freely entered into,” Begala continued.
“So what is my party doing with this? They’re disadvantaging — I think they’re not helping the people that we’re here to help, which is [sic] poor people and underprivileged communities,” Begala added. “And they’re not helping their politicians who are running.”
Begala’s comments come shortly after an analysis of Biden’s student debt cancellation plan from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that Biden’s plan will cost around $330 billion, and would primarily benefit Americans in higher income quintiles.
The plan would also cost the average American taxpayer more than $2,000, according to a report from the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation.
“Some may dispute that taxpayers bear the cost of canceling student debt. But the $329 billion cost of student debt cancellation would be $329 billion previously borrowed from the federal government and not returning to the Treasury. Policymakers will need to make up for that gap in the future with government spending cuts, tax increases, more borrowing, or some combination thereof,” the report explained. “It’s also worth noting that the $329 billion cost of student debt cancellation is more than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the entire Inflation Reduction Act reduces deficits in its first decade.”
