If you get your answer off by 100% on a math test, you’ll probably fail. But if you’re budget wonks at the Biden White House, you’ll probably get a promotion.
A new Ivy League analysis finds that one of the Biden administration’s key policies will cost taxpayers TWICE as much as his staff originally claimed. Analysts at the Penn-Wharton Budget Model analyzed the president’s plan for expanded income-based repayment plans, which as I’ve previously explained, forgive large amounts of student debt if you make small payments for a set period of time, and found they’re going to be much more expensive than the president promised.
The Education Department says the plan will cost $138 billion over a decade. But, the Penn-Wharton experts modeled it using more realistic assumptions that account for the likelihood of increased participation, and estimate that it will actually cost somewhere between $333 billion and $361 billion. That’s more than double the initial estimate! At this cost, it would come out to roughly $2300 per federal taxpayer.
Oh, and this increased cost is actually an underestimate. Why? Well, because it doesn’t take into account the fact that tuition prices will almost certainly surge even higher after this subsidy takes effect, inevitably leading to even higher costs for the future forgiveness programs.
Oh, and the income-driven repayment plan actually financially encourages people to study things where they’re going to earn less money. Yes, seriously.
You have to add this all to the expected $469 billion Biden’s other student loan handout plans will cost, too.
Meanwhile, the only beneficiaries from all this are people who went to college, who aren’t exactly the ones struggling in our society right now. Bankrupting taxpayers to comfort the elite.
Is that really what “Build Back Better” meant?
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