Tim Ryan Flip-Flops in Opposition to Biden Student Debt Relief

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) praised Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) student debt relief plan when he ran for president; now that Ryan is running for U.S. Senate, he says President Joe Biden’s student debt plan “sends the wrong message.”

Biden’s student debt relief plan created a political shockwave, as it serves as another fulfillment of one of his campaign promises during the 2020 election.

Ryan, when running for the presidential nomination alongside Biden, was equally supportive of student debt relief.

When CNN asked Ryan in June 2019 if Americans could afford either Sens. Sanders or Elizabeth Warren’s student debt cancellation plans, he said, “I think doing something along those lines is going to put significant amounts of money into the pockets of working-class people and I’m supportive of that.”

He also cautioned that he comes from the industrial Midwest and noted that many working-class Ohioans did not go to college, and thus would not benefit from student debt relief.

Warren’s debt plan would forgive up to $50,000 in student loans for those making less than $100,000 per year. Sanders’ is even more extreme; he would cancel the nation’s $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.

However, now that Ryan is running for the U.S. Senate against Republican J.D. Vance, he said he favors other policies over broad forgiveness, such as tax cuts, medical debt cancellation, and targeted forgiveness for essential workers. Ryan explained:

While there’s no doubt that a college education should be about opening opportunities, waiving debt for those already on a trajectory to financial security sends the wrong message to the millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.

Vance slammed the Biden debt relief plan, arguing it amounts to a $300 billion “elite giveaway.”

“In the midst of a historic inflation crisis, Joe Biden supplied a $300 billion giveaway to college graduates,” Vance said in a statement. He said 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.”