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My Point of View by Brad Kramer

Congratulations to Rep. Brad Finstad for winning the special election and being sworn in to finish the term of our late Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who passed due to cancer earlier this year. Rep. Finstad won a hard fight for the remainder of the term and will be on the ballet this November for a full term. We look forward to fighting hard for Rep. Finstad, Sen. Gene Dornink and Rep. Peggy Bennett, and your endorsed Republican candidates, including Dr. Scott Jensen and Matt Birk for governor and lieutenant governor, Jim Schutlz for attorney general, Kim Crocket for secretary of state and Ryan Wilson for state auditor.

What do you think about Biden’s order to forgive student loan debt for many Americans? Would you benefit directly? What will the long-term impact be for you? 

I would initially directly benefit from student loan forgiveness because I still carry student loan debt (I finished a business degree in 2015), and since I received Pell grants, I would get $20,000 forgiven. Even with this direct benefit, though, I would rather see this plan get struck down because of the impact it would have on inflation. Let me repeat this. I would rather not receive $20,000 in student loan forgiveness because of how badly it will impact our economy.

What does this plan mean for America?

It will likely never see the light of day. Democrats have been saying for years that the president cannot simply forgive debt. Speaker Pelosi is seen in a recent video saying just that, yet suddenly, it’s magically in his power! They are using the Heroes Law from 2003 as justification, which is a stretch. It will likely be challenged and found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. There will be an extravagant amount of money spent promoting and fighting the legality of this plan that is going to fail from the start.

Many Republicans and Democrats alike are concerned about the longterm ramifications of Biden’s plan. This plan is for Americans who make up to $125,000 ($250,000 for couples) to have debt forgiven. Almost 60% of student received Pell grants, which allows them to have $20,000 rather than the standard $10,000 forgiven. This plan would cost roughly $300 billion in its first year!

Can somebody please show me the magic money tree to fund this? Because when Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre or anyone else in charge is asked, they just go in circles around the question and evade the answers. Then they bring up PPP loan forgiveness as if it’s comparable in any way.

The PPP loans being forgiven, and student loan forgiveness are vastly different things. PPP loans were given to businesses to keep their employees on payroll while the government shut their businesses down. PPP loans were not taken out by business owners to build their business or profit. It was to pay employees who would otherwise be laid off and then bankrupt the unemployment system. Expecting business owners to pay back a loan taken out to pay employees during a period where they were shutdown is wrong. 

When students go to college, they do it with the intention being to prepare for their future. College degrees do not often bring the benefits that they once did, but that is an entirely different subject that we can’t address in 800 words or less. However, the Biden administration is doing virtually nothing to fix this situation. We’re simply going to keep sending young people to college pursuing degrees that will confer little benefit to them or the economy. 

$300 billion is not a small amount of money! It’s easy to get caught up in the emotional appeal that this forgiveness will help millions of Americans, but at its core, it is nothing more than a way to promise something for voters that cannot be delivered and will end up with a cost that far exceeds what our taxpayers can bear at the expense of our economy. 

Recall during the middle of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Most of us were hit hard. Whether you were a business owner trying to figure out how to keep your business from going under, or an employee trying to make ends meet when your employer was shutdown, it was a difficult time. Several stimulus checks went out. Now, we’re just starting to see the inflation and recession this caused, and it’s going to get much worse. If it moves forward, Biden’s plan will make it exponentially worse! 

Republicans know that simply forgiving student loans sounds compassionate but saddles future generations with more debt than they can bear. I’m not interested in making my children pay off my student loans at the expense of their future economy and national debt. Are you? 

Brad Kramer is a member of the Freeborn County GOP Party.