Opinion | The Student Loan Forgiveness Bill Comes Due

Remember when the White House suggested, only weeks ago, that President Biden’s student-loan cancellation wouldn’t add much to the federal budget deficit this year? That turns out to be false. The Congressional Budget Office made that clear Tuesday in reporting that the write-off would cost some $426 billion and push the federal deficit to $1.4 trillion for all of fiscal 2022 that ended on Sept. 30.

As recently as May CBO said the deficit would come in at $1 trillion or so. Tax receipts have since come in $60 billion more than estimated. But outlays soared by $401 billion more. The budget gnomes note in their deathless prose that the increase “primarily stems from $426 billion in costs estimated and recorded by the Administration in September 2022 to reflect the long-term costs of certain forms of student debt relief.”