At least $10,000 in student debt cancellation should be the 'floor' for Biden, top House progressive says

• Rep. Ro Khanna says $10,000 in student debt relief should be "the floor" for the Biden administration.
• "We have to deliver at least $10,000," he said in an interview with Insider.

Rep. Ro Khanna of California is urging President Joe Biden to stick to a campaign pledge ahead of the November midterms: Forgiving student debt.

The influential House progressive argued $10,000 should be "the floor" for the president to wipe out using executive action.

"We have to deliver at least $10,000," Khanna said in an interview with Insider. "I'm for up to $50,000 for working families and students who are working class but at least deliver the $10,000."

With much of the Democratic legislative agenda stalled, the Congressional Progressive Caucus released an array of executive orders that Biden could take on his own last month. They included unilateral action on student debt relief without specifying a figure.

The California Democrat also pushed back against arguments from economists that debt relief would provide outsized benefits to professionals or higher-income Americans.

"A lot of the people who are getting student debt relief are first generation — first in their families to go to college or from working or middle class backgrounds," he said. "If you're a upper middle-class professional, as someone who's wealthy, you wouldn't have to take out the student loans."

Khanna's push comes just after President Joe Biden extended the pause on student-loan payments, and waived interest, for his fourth time in office. With the pause set to expire on August 31, many of Khanna's Democratic colleagues have argued that instead of resuming payments right before the midterms, delivering broad student-loan relief would be a great way to win some votes at the polls.

For example, a Data for Progress poll first obtained by Insider found that nearly half of likely voters in key battleground states would be more likely to head to the polls should Biden fulfill his $10,000 student-debt cancellation campaign pledge.

And while many Democrats are hoping Biden will go beyond $10,000 in relief, it appears many of them just hope he will make some dent in the $1.7 trillion crisis. Nearly 100 Democratic lawmakers recently called on Biden to cancel a "meaningful amount" of student debt, with Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal telling reporters that while she supports $50,000 in forgiveness, the goal right now is for Biden to "make progress" on the issue.

But, as Insider previously reported, Republican lawmakers remain largely opposed to these moves. Many of them have cited the cost to taxpayers that would accompany broad student loan relief, with top Republican on the House education committee Virginia Foxx recently saying she worried the additional payment pause extension would make way for broad forgiveness.

Biden himself has been largely silent on broad relief. But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week that the president will either extend the student-loan payment pause again, or "make a decision" on canceling student debt before September.