GOP senator says Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan ‘monumentally unfair’

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said on Sunday that the Biden administration’s plan to forgive some student loans is “monumentally unfair” to people who didn’t attend college or have already paid back their debt and therefore wouldn’t benefit.

During an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Blunt told anchor George Stephanopoulos that while “education is important” the loan forgiveness plan is “just bad economics.”

“It should impact the way people live their lives. I just thought it was monumentally unfair, unfair to people who didn’t go to college because they didn’t think they could afford it, unfair to people who pay their loans back, unfair to people who got higher education in an area that the government didn’t make loans, and just bad economics,” Blunt told Stephanopoulos. 

“In addition to that, I think it’s going to have a long-term devastating effect on a student loan program that worked pretty effectively until about 10 years ago, when the federal government assumed responsibility for that program,” Blunt added. 

President Biden announced on Wednesday an initiative to forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers who make less than $125,000 annually as well as $20,000 for borrowers who are Pell Grants recipients. 

Blunt added that the forgiveness wouldn’t benefit an already complicated economy.

“You don’t slow the economy down by forgiving debt and giving people another $24 billion to spend that they would have been spending paying off the student debt that they borrowed,” Blunt said.