President Joe Biden's plan for the government to take on tens of thousands of dollars in student debt will cost the average taxpayer more than $2,000, according to a National Taxpayers Union Foundation report.
Based on Penn Wharton Budget Model projections, the total cost of Biden's debt cancellation is $329 billion over 10 years, the foundation found. With 158 million taxpayers in the country as of 2019, the average cost comes out to $2,085.59 per taxpayer.
The report comes as people take to Twitter to call the plan deeply unfair, with user @mfl_normal writing that Biden is "punishing people" who "do the right thing." Republicans and some Democrats have blasted the cancellation, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) calling it "a slap in the face to working Americans" and swing-district Rep. Jared Golden (D., Maine) saying it's "out of touch."
Multiple economists, meanwhile, say the plan will worsen inflation, with former Obama administration adviser Jason Furman comparing the "reckless" move to pouring "gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning."
Most Americans agree with Furman. Almost 60 percent worry that debt cancellation will make inflation worse, according to a CNBC poll published this week, as inflation under Biden remains at 40-year highs.
Student debt cancellation costs more money than the president's so-called Inflation Reduction Act will reduce deficits in its first decade, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation noted, while doing "nothing to address the underlying causes of education costs."