If it seemed the loudest applause for President Joe Biden’s student-loan bailout came from the U.S. Department of Education, we now know why.
According to The College Fix, a conservative website, 41 political and policy appointees stand to see more than $500,000 in total student-loan debt get picked up by the taxpayers under Biden’s plan.
The research was attributed to the American Accountability Foundation.
The amount of debt to disappear for each of the 41 Bidenistas ranges from the minimum of $10,000 to $22,835, which includes interest as well. Collectively, they will not have to repay $512,646.
Biden has said up to $10,000 in debt will be wiped away for people making up to $125,000 a year, or $250,000 per couple. For Pell Grant recipients, the max is $20,000.
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Republicans in Congress have denounced the plan as a massive giveaway to upper income earners whose loans will be assumed by people who have either already repaid loans or never taken one out.
Meanwhile, the Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania has already shredded the administration’s estimated cost. The PWBM projects the bailout will cost more than $1 trillion, or more than four times the administration’s estimate.
American Accountability Foundation founder Tom Jones told The Fix that Biden’s policy is a textbook example of conflict of interest.
“The fact that Department of Education staffers who could personally benefit from the student loan bailout are the same people who are crafting it is a conflict of interest and unacceptable,” Jones told The Fix. “The President and the Secretary of Education should have excluded anyone who was eligible for the bailout from helping draft it.”
“The people who drafted the policy see the issue through their personal lens, which is that of a young person living in Washington DC, heavily indebted from expensive educations whose value outside government and campaign jobs is negligible,” Jones continued. “Of course they advocate for a policy that reduces their monthly bills. You would have had a much different policy if it was drafted by people who had taken loans, graduated, worked in the private sector, and paid down their loans.”
He further added, “It’s unfair to the young person who waited tables 40 hours a week after classes to pay their tuition and not take loans, it’s unfair to the student who went to a less expensive school when they might have been a better fit at a pricier school, it’s unfair to people who graduated, worked their butts off and paid their loans like they’re supposed to, it’s unfair to parents who saved for their children’s tuition and sacrificed for their children, it’s unfair to the taxpayer who graduated high school, got a six-figure welding job, and didn’t go to college and now has to pay higher taxes to cover the loans of a gender studies major from Oberlin.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Free Press.
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