J.D. Vance Calls Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness a ‘$300 Billion Elite Giveaway’

J.D. Vance, the Trump-backed Republican nominee for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat, called President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme a “$300 billion elite giveaway on the backs of American workers” and hammered his opponent Rep. Tim Ryan for his “mealy-mouthed statement.”

“In the midst of a historic inflation crisis, Joe Biden supplied a $300 billion giveaway to college graduates,” Vance said in a statement, noting that it would be “paid for by single moms in the form of higher food prices, by trade workers in the form of higher taxes, and by the next generation of students in the form of higher tuition.”

On Wednesday, Biden announced his decision to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt for Americans making less than $125,000 a year. The president announced details of his plan on social media, describing it as a “campaign promise” to give “working and middle-class families breathing room” on student loans.

Additionally, instead of Biden holding college administrators accountable for the skyrocketing cost of tuition, Vance added, Biden has contributed to bloating bureaucratic budgets and growing armies of “diversity” consultants and is bailing out those who least need the help: “individuals with six figure incomes, and couples making nearly a quarter million dollars per year.”

According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, Biden’s student loan forgiveness program would cost taxpayers more in its first year than the Inflation Reduction Act is estimated to reduce the federal budget deficit over the coming decade.

Breitbart News’s John Carney wrote:

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates this will cost $300 billion in its first year. If the program is continued over the next decade, the cost will rise to $330, according to the model.

The same budget model estimates that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will reduce budget deficits by $248 billion over a 10-year period. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the IRA will shrink deficits by $305 billion.

Vance continued, “If Joe Biden wanted to help people without juicing inflation, he’d force universities like Harvard and Yale to liquidate their multi-billion dollar endowments to pay for his corrupt bailout.”

The Trump-backed Republican nominee also hammered Ryan — the 20-year career politician who had a failed 2020 presidential run to become a Biden surrogate later — for having a “mealy-mouthed statement on what Biden is doing” and added that the Democrat should instead offer some “leadership” and “vote against Joe Biden when it actually counts.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.