By Gregory Svirnovskiy || The Arizona Republic
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.
