The White House Calls Out GOP Student Loan Critics For Being Hypocrites—But Is Biden’s Plan Actually Enough?
In a series of tweets on Thursday, the White House blasted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and other GOP members for criticizing President Joe Biden’s student loan debt plan when they themselves have had Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven.
The tweet about Greene featured a video of her in an interview on Newsmax where she criticized the student loan debt plan, saying it’s unfair to taxpayers who’ve never taken out a student loan. Greene also said that the timing was “completely unfair” being so close to the midterm elections.
“They need votes in November so the timing is pure coincidence there as well. It’s completely unfair,” she said in the interview. In 2020, Greene had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven for her construction company, Taylor Commercial, Inc.
When the plan was announced on Wednesday, reporters asked Biden whether the debt relief plan is in fact fair to those who did not take out loans, or have already paid off their loans. To which the President responded with a swing at tax cuts on the wealthy.
“Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multibillion-dollar businesses, if they see one of these guys getting all the tax cuts?” he asked. “Is that fair? What do you think?”
He reiterated this point on Twitter before the series of tweets from the White House account was posted.
Other congressmen who received PPP loan forgiveness featured in the White House account’s tweets were Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
Among these representatives, Greene actually had the smallest amount of debt forgiven, while Buchanan had the largest at over $2.3 million.
And while their criticism of the student loan debt plan may be hypocritical, general feedback for Biden’s debt relief plan has actually been mixed.
Bernie Sanders, for one, has earlier expressed that all student debt should be canceled. Robert Reich, meanwhile, compared the total student debt amount to the tax cuts for the rich (spoiler: both are $1.9 trillion), while former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner called out that if PPP loans were forgiven in full, then so should student loans.
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