President Joe Biden announced a plan to forgive a huge chunk of student debt, amounting to $10K-$20K per government-funded borrower.
While most people were celebrating the most gain to their most unwinnable debt cycles, Republicans in Washington went on the attack. Rep Marjorie Taylor Green, for instance, said last week, “They (taxpayers) shouldn’t have to pay off the great big student loan debt for some college students that pile up massive debt going to some Ivy League school.” And the White House fired back with what looks like a mostly exhaustive list of Republican congresspeople who have complained about the student loan forgiveness … while enjoying the benefits of their own forgiven loans, in this case belonging to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) instituted during the pandemic.
The White House clapped back at Green by revealing that she had over $183K in PPP loan forgiveness. Joining her on the list of “oops probably shouldn’t have called all those who enjoy loan forgiveness bad names because here I am” is:
Matt Gaetz: $482K
Vern Buchanan: $2.3M
Markwayne Mullin: $1.4M
Kevin Hern: $1M
Mike Kelley: $987K
Greg Pence $79K
Roger Williams: $1.4M
Brett Guthrie: $4.3M
Since every single number on there is significantly larger than $10K-$20K, you can see how ballsy it is for the GOP to be blasting those reaping very small benefit from student loan forgiveness. In addition, the House Judiciary Twitter account tweeted, “If you take out a loan, you pay it back. Period.” Well, that just became extraordinarily embarrassing, considering how many GOP reps did the exact opposite.
Critics of the GOP have pointed out that tax cuts for the rich and other loan forgiveness programs for the wealthy have not garnered the same condemnation, regardless of who foots the bill for the programs. If the GOP is going to focus on a minor windfall for some of the nation’s most vital workers, from teachers to nurses and everyone in between, then they should make sure that their own house isn’t sitting on money earned by doing exactly what they’re slamming others for doing.
However, PolitiFact points out, that there is a gap in equivalency here: “Comparing the Paycheck Protection Program with student debt forgiveness is not entirely parallel, as the business loans were designed to be forgiven as long as the money went toward pandemic-related costs and expenses.”
But of course, that’s not what the GOP said. It wasn’t “only certain loans are OK to forgive,” it was pretty black and white: “If you take out a loan, you pay it back. Period.”
This woman is a nut job. Just like the orange ass blimp she worships.