One of Biden’s main campaign promises was to tackle the problem of the $1.75 Trillion student loan problem, and many people voted for that promise. On Tuesday, Biden announced a new student loan forgiveness plan that will help more than 150,000 people, especially those suffering from disability and service workers. Biden’s previous attempts were shot down by the GOP in Congress and by the conservative majority Supreme Court.
GOP claimed that lazy people who can’t “find a job” would be receiving “free” benefits on behalf of American taxpayers. But does the GOP even care about the average American taxpayer?
Republicans And Their Tax Cuts
Remember, the Trump and GOP tax cuts of 2017? It’s no surprise that the richest 20% of Americans received nearly 64% of all the tax benefits. The bottom 20% got a tax reduction of $40 per year, while the top 1% got an average of $36,000. According to Economists, the richest 400 families have a lower tax rate than the families in the bottom half, all because of Trump’s tax cuts that Republicans supported wholeheartedly.
The tax cuts didn’t have any major effect on economic growth. However, the cuts slowed hiring, while wage growth remained lackluster. It proves that Republicans don’t care about the average taxpayers; what are their real motives?
Why Are Republicans Fiercely Fighting Against Student Loan Forgiveness?
The short answer is: It helps low-income families and not billionaires. Mississippi Republican Governor Tate Reeves suggested that the Biden administration “hates working people” and claimed that the average American will be forced to pay off the debts of people with useless “gender studies” degrees.
Despite Republicans’ baseless claims, student loan forgiveness helps the American working class. According to a 2022 study, $10,000 in student debt relief would reduce the debt burden by 33% among the lowest 20% income families and by 25% for households among the next 20%.
One more bizarre reason for Republicans to oppose student loan forgiveness is that the military won’t be able to hire poor people. A letter sent to Biden by 17 Republican lawmakers stated that student loan relief would remove any “leverage” that the military has for recruiting poor people who wish to have higher education.
Republicans often frame student loan forgiveness as unfair, despite some of their own benefiting from the “socialized” education in the past. For instance, a Republican Senator called the policy “Unfair,” paid state-subsidized tuition fees of $159 in 1955. The same University of Northern Iowa now costs roughly 5 times more even when adjusted for inflation.
What’s unfair is the fact that 25% of all adults under the age of 40 have student loan debt, and 23% of people above the age of 40 are still paying student loans, while the Republicans, who oppose student loan forgiveness, enjoyed “socialized” higher education.
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