During a Friday radio interview, Rep. Cindy Axne praised President Joe Biden’s recent executive order to cancel up to $20,000 of student loans. The public comments broke her nearly weeklong silence on Biden’s latest gambit ahead of the pivotal 2022 midterm elections.
In particular, Axne downplayed a bipartisan chorus of concerns about the debt cancellation initiative – which could cost up to $1 trillion, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model – by citing a recent Wall Street firm’s analysis.
“Today, Goldman Sachs [had] an analysis that said the net impact of the debt forgiveness and resuming student loan payments is likely to be very modest, but it will be slightly disinflationary, so it will bring down inflation,” Axne said on KMA’s “Morning Line” program. “So, I’m glad to see this is something that will not impact inflation negatively.”
Republican officials have rebuked Axne’s claim, pointing to numerous analyses and commentaries from the Tax Foundation, Committee for a Responsible Budget, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and numerous former Democrat White House economic advisers that have all concluded that Biden’s initiative will worsen inflation.
Most of Iowa’s Republican candidates and elected officials, including Axne challenger State Sen. Zach Nunn, were quick to sharply criticize the loan cancellation push.
In a press release, a Republican National Committee spokesman blasted Axne’s “familiar pattern” of laying low on hut-button Biden policy pushes before coming out in full support of them – as she did with Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act,” which will controversially add 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents to conduct more audits, and Biden’s revocation of Title 42, which could worsen the ongoing southern border crisis.
“Then again, we’ve also seen another familiar pattern from Axne on inflation: unashamed gaslighting, lying, and deflecting on the historic inflation ushered in by her ‘great president’ that’s eating away at Iowans’ paychecks,” the spokesman said. “So why stop now?”
