(The Center Square) According to a newly released survey data, the majority of Americans are less likely to support candidates who favor President Joe Biden’s so-called student loan forgiveness.
The executive fiat would transfer up to $20,000 in borrowers’ debt to all U.S. taxpayers even as inflation hovers around double digits and remains the top concern of most citizens. Its total cost is projected to be around $500-800 billion.
Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released the data, which found that 55.6% of voters say they are “less likely to vote for a candidate who supports President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.”
In fact, 49% of those surveyed said they are “much less likely” to support that kind of candidate.
Notably, 64.6% of independent voters said the same.
When announcing the plan in late August, Biden also said his administration will also allow debtors to cap repayment of their student loans at 5% of their income.
Those payments will not need to begin until the beginning of next year, according to the Biden administration.
The decision was met with controversy and pushback from critics who raised concerns about the federal spending amid heightened inflation as well as questions about whether Americans should be paying the bills of the college-educated.
“Joe Biden has had a lot of bad ideas,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said after the announcement. “But transferring billions in student loan debt to taxpayers – especially at a time of high inflation – might be his worst idea yet.”
The poll found that 44.4% of voters say they are “more likely to vote for a candidate who supports Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan” while 30.9% say they are “much more likely” to do so.
The survey queried more than 1,000 likely midterm voters from Sept. 2 through Sept. 5.
“We’re seeing this reflected not just in the polling but on the ground as well with grassroots activists we talk to in every state,” said Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States Action. “This is looking like the sleeper issue that may have more impact in November than people suspect.”
The survey comes on the heels of another recent survey that found the majority of Americans fear student loan cancellation will hike prices.
As the Center Square previously reported, the CNBC/Momentive survey released in August said that 59% of those surveyed said they are concerned forgiving the debt will make inflation worse.
“Republicans are especially concerned: 81% of Republicans say student loan forgiveness will make inflation worse, nearly double the number of Democrats who say the same (41%),” Momentive said.
