There are reasonable arguments to be done on both the policy and the politics of the issue. Here is my take.
First, the politics. Student loan debt forgiveness has long been a left wing ask for years, and the center and right are saying that the Biden administration is “pandering” to the left to allow this to go through. They say that the people that it benefits will mostly vote Democrat anyway so it’s not winning any votes. IMO this is a flawed argument. Biden by most accounts has been an effective president shepherding several major pieces of legislation and leading a foreign policy crisis, yet his approval ratings remain low. Yes, this piece of legislation will help the young and the educated who tend to vote Democrat. When they vote. And that is the key—Biden doesn’t excite anybody so getting people out to vote will be a chore. If he can do something to excite the left wing then they may be more apt to support him.
Now the policy, and this will be colored by my own politics which lean libertarian but are all over the map. From a birds eye view I feel that a healthy, educated society will lead to higher economic productivity than a sick, uneducated society. Because of this, I think that good free or inexpensive health care and education should be available to all individuals. My issue with this piece of legislation is that it does absolutely nothing to curb the overal cost of education. I can pay for my daughter’s college, but only becuase I started saving for it when she was 1 year old. I had the means to do so, but that’s untenable for most.
So yes, by all means, forgive some debt. I think the debt relief should be higher. However, as policy, it’s deeply flawed as the cost of college will not be touched by this and it’s just a band-aid on a bleeding wound.