Brihana Joy Gray, former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, slammed the Biden administration for taking funding for free community college off the table to be included in a social spending package.
“How can you turn your nose up at the idea of two years free public education? How could you turn your nose up at the idea of student loan cancellation?” Gray said on Hill.TV’s “Rising” Wednesday.
“We were told ‘Dr. Jill Biden understands education. Dr. Jill Biden is personally invested in this and this is not going to be a promise that is reneged upon’ and here we are,” Gray added.
First lady Jill Biden said on Monday that free community college wouldn’t go in President Biden’s social spending package, acknowledging it is a blow to one of the administration’s most important economic issues.
The initiative would have given community colleges $45.5 billion to cover the cost of the free two years of schooling.
“We were having this incredible discourse around these much more expensive SALT credits. There’s no means testing or any kind of conversation around Trump’s $1.7 trillion tax cut,” Gray said.
“Yet, somehow, in the richest country in the history of the world when it comes down to providing basic services that not only help working people, help the entire country by making sure we have a qualified educated workforce are thrown out the window.”
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