Democrats cheer Biden's student loan relief plan as Republicans call it 'unfair'
Democrats cheered President Joe Biden’s move to cancel $10,000 in federal student loans for millions of borrowers, while Republicans cast the plan as a "handout" and warned about inflation.
WASHINGTON — Democrats cheered President Joe Biden’s move to cancel $10,000 in federal student loans for millions of borrowers, saying he’s now fulfilled a key campaign promise to help Americans struggling to pay for college and saddled with debt.
Republicans immediately slammed Biden’s actions, which come a little more than two months before the crucial midterm elections. They argued that erasing the debt represents a government giveaway to the rich, is "unfair" to those who already paid off their loans or taxpayers who never went to college, and that more spending will exacerbate record inflation.
"An awful lot of Americans choose not to go to college. And then there are those Americans who borrowed money to pay for school and paid it back. In what way is it fair to those taxpayers?" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Wednesday in Kentucky.
"So I think fundamentally when we borrow money, we pay it back. And I don’t think the government ought to be forgiving."
Biden announces plan to address 'burden of student debt'Aug. 24, 202203:43Roughly 45 million Americans have student debt, totaling more than $1.7 trillion in the second quarter of 2022, the Federal Reserve estimated. People with smaller amounts of debt often have a harder time paying it off because they might not have completed their degree or have degrees with lower earning power compared to those with more debt.
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