Pressure from top Democrats and left-wing pundits is mounting on a presumptive Biden administration to make “canceling” student debt a priority (aka, make taxpayers pay it off). The problems with this policy are endless, from its regressive benefits that skew toward the wealthiest citizens to its creation of a moral hazard problem that would encourage future students to make poor decisions.

But in a fascinating twist, a new analysis shows that even from a progressive economic perspective, student loan cancellation would be an awful economic “stimulus” policy. Left-wing advocates have made their case, in part, based on the notion that canceling student loans would free up money for people and encourage spending, which, under “Keynesian” economic theory, stimulates the economy.