Conservative leaders are fuming over President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will cancel some student loan debt, contending that the move “benefits coastal elites with Ivy League degrees and punishes working-class Americans.”
President Biden announced his plan to forgive some student loan debt for individual borrowers making less than $125,000 on Wednesday, roughly two months away from the midterm elections.
“In keeping with my campaign promise, my Administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023. I’ll have more details this afternoon,” Biden said in a social media post, which explains that the administration will forgive up to $20,000 for a qualifying individual who went to college on Pell Grants and $10,000 if the individual did not receive Pell Grants.
While some Democrats, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), do not think the plan goes far enough, most Democrats are celebrating it as a victory.
Conservatives, however, contend that this move simply serves as another middle finger to the middle class.
“Canceling student debt benefits coastal elites with Ivy League degrees and punishes working class Americans,” Senate Republicans said:
“President Biden didn’t ‘forgive student debt,’ he chose to shift the burden of the well-off onto the backs of the 87 percent of Americans who chose to not go to college, already paid off their loans, or saved to not take them out in the first place,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) concurred:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the move is both “insane – and illegal!”
“We have the highest inflation in 40 years/highest gas prices ever, but Biden wants to spend even more at the expense of hard-working Americans,” the Texas lawmaker said, warning that the middle class will have to deal with the bill.
“This is just a Hail Mary before midterms,” he added:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) described the move as “student loan socialism,” deeming it a “slap in the face to working Americans who sacrificed to pay their debt or made different career choices to avoid debt.”
“A wildly unfair redistribution of wealth toward higher-earning people,” he said:
“President Biden’s student loan bailout ignores the true culprit: bloated, self-serving colleges,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said in a statement, adding that he will be “introducing a bill to hold these colleges accountable for debt, lower tuition, support non-college career paths and save the taxpayers billions”:
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