U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks Wednesday on the Senate floor regarding student loan socialism:
“There are lots of egregious ways that President Biden has wasted taxpayer money trying to buy up his low approval ratings. But the Democrats’ proposal for student loan socialism is one of the worst.
“It’s like the Democrats paid scientists in a lab to invent the most unfair government handout that could possibly exist.
“Democrats want to take the graduate school loans of doctors and lawyers and white-collar professionals making six figures… and put their debt on the shoulders of Americans who didn’t take out loans at all.
“To the middle-class families who saved and sacrificed and skipped vacations to pay for more of their kids’ college — the Democrats want to turn you into suckers.
To the plumbers, firefighters, checkout clerks, and auto mechanics who made career choices to avoid taking on debt — the Democrats think dentists and attorneys deserve extra handouts at your expense.
“To the patriots who volunteered to serve our nation in uniform as part of a plan to attend college debt-free — the Democrats want to change the rules behind your back.
“President Biden and his party wake up every day looking for ways to transfer money and power away from the working class toward elites. But even for today’s Democratic Party, this one is especially galling.
“This is a ‘reverse Robin Hood’ policy: Democrats stealing from the working class to reward people who are comparatively better-off.
“It isn’t just unfair on a personal level. It is also staggeringly reckless fiscal policy.
“Remember, this whole undertaking was first set up as a short-term emergency measure at the very start of COVID. Those earliest weeks, when the entire economy seemed to be in free fall. That was almost three years ago.
“Shortly afterwards, thanks to the bipartisan CARES Act that came out of the Republican-led Senate, the economy rebounded. Household savings actually went up. Many white-collar professionals spent months if not years working remotely from the comfort of their living rooms.
“Any legitimate reason for pausing loan payments evaporated just a few months after it began. But the Democrats have kept it going, year after year.
“Now they want to magically wave away people’s debts altogether.
“Needless to say, this would be enormously expensive for the country.
“If you add up the cost of three things —
“The nearly three-year-long ‘pause’ thus far… the mass jubilee the Biden Administration is trying to defend in court… and the Democrats’ proposal to turn the income-driven repayment program into permanent socialism…
“The total cost of these three measures is projected to cost up to approximately one trillion dollars.
“This estimate is from our colleague Senator Cassidy, who is shining a bright spotlight on these terrible policies as the incoming Ranking Member of the HELP Committee.
“On top of all the reckless, inflationary spending that Democrats have pushed through, they want to redistribute up to another trillion dollars away from working-class Americans toward college-educated people who already earn higher salaries on average.
“The Democrats want to squeeze even more money out of cashiers, welders, first responders, janitors, and cosmetologists and send it to a group of people who already out-earn those people on an average basis.
“More reckless spending. More debt and inflation. And no fairness for American families.”
