Socialism is Back; McCarthy’s Cry to the GOP

The GOP has reacted to President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plans calling it little more than bribery of young voters for the impending midterms and branding it more left-wing socialism!

Biden has just made his long-awaited announcement on federal student loans, saying his administration plans to cancel $10,000 in debt per borrower for individuals making under $125,000 a year or households making less than $250,000.

In what many on the right see as a blatant attempt at a vote grab for younger voters in the upcoming November midterms, now only about 70 days away, he also announced forgiveness of up to $20,000 per borrower for Pell Grant recipients, along with one final pause for loan repayments.

As you might imagine, the GOP has been quite critical of the move.

“President Biden’s student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt, and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our Armed Forces in order to avoid taking on debt. This policy is astonishingly unfair,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said in a statement.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy added, “In addition to making inflation worse, transferring student debt does nothing to curtail runaway costs in higher education, including graduate schools that charge more and more while delivering less and less. Forgiveness without accountability is a free pass for failed programs with high costs and poor outcomes and would be a green light for colleges to continue tuition hikes. Indeed, taxpayers may face more costs in just a few years when student debt returns to its current level.”

And while a great number of Republicans have voraciously attacked Biden’s plan, Jason Furman, a Harvard economics professor and the chairman of former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, was one of the few figures on the Left to criticize Biden’s proposal.

“There are a number of other highly problematic impacts, including encouraging higher tuition in the future, encouraging more borrowing, creating expectations of future debt forgiveness, and more,” he tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “Most importantly, everyone else will pay for this either in the form of higher inflation or in higher taxes or lower benefits in the future.”