- House Republicans on the Education Committee criticized Democrats for supporting loan forgiveness.
- They said it “makes no logical sense” to continue paying loans after any relief.
- Biden is likely to announce broad relief before loan payments resume in September.
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Republican lawmakers are unhappy that Democrats are backing President Joe Biden’s sweeping student loan forgiveness plans.
During a House Education Subcommittee hearing this week on tribal colleges and universities, some Republican lawmakers on the committee used the time to criticize Democrats for not holding a hearing to fix the “spiraling student loan disaster,” as subcommittee Republican leader Marianette Miller-Meeks said. After the hearing, Democratic Rep. Leger Fernandez said “the minority decided to hijack this hearing to score political points on student loans.”
Republicans on the committee later responded in a blog post criticizing Democrats’ plans for student loan relief.
“Republicans understand something Democrats apparently don’t: America’s wealthiest who can pay their own loans don’t need taxpayer help. These policies are unfair to those who have already paid off their loans or never even attended college,” they wrote, adding that “forgiving students and graduates today but handing out more loans tomorrow makes no logical sense. But logic has never been the Democrats’ strong suit.”
Biden is close to a decision on broad student loan forgiveness for federal borrowers and is reportedly considering $10,000 in relief for borrowers who make less than $150,000 a year. With student loan repayment set to resume on September 1, a White House spokesperson confirmed to Insider that the president still hopes to announce broad relief before that date. While Democratic lawmakers hope the relief will be broad without any thresholds, Republicans don’t want to see any relief at all and have accused Democrats of keeping their “heads in the sand while President Biden forces Congress to grant massive student loan forgiveness.”
They have often used the argument that student debt cancellation will benefit the wealthiest rather than those most in need of relief, and have said that addressing tuition costs is more important than forgiveness of the debt. Democrats and left-leaning pundits have dismissed that, with a Roosevelt Institute report last year finding that 61 percent of students with incomes of $30,000 and under who started college in 2012 graduated with student debt, compared to just 30 percent of students with incomes $200,000.
So far, it’s still unclear what Biden will actually decide to do when it comes to broad relief. Deputy Education Minister James Quall said in a recent interview that the issue is more complex than it might appear and “it’s not a question of yes, you have the power or no, you don’t have the power, there are a lot of hoops to jump through.” The department maintains, that regardless of the relief, borrowers should prepare to resume payments in just over a month.
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