Grand Canyon 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. The debt forgiveness plan has support from Arizona's Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly.

According to Fox News, Biden announced Wednesday that for borrowers making less than $125,000 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 addition, The president has also extended pandemic-era payment freezes through the end of this 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.

Kelly, who's up for reelection in November, supports Biden's debt-forgiveness plan, according to Axios.

"The reality is college costs too much, and the federal government should not be profiting off of young graduates," Kelly said. He also said he's glad the plan is "more targeted" than other proposals that would cancel all student loan debt.

At a press briefing, Speaker of the House 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.