Education Secretary Miguel Cardona conceded on Wednesday that borrowers who had repaid their student loans would get no benefit from President Joe Biden’s planned cancellation of up to $10,000 in student debt for many borrowers.
Cardona spoke briefly with Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy, who asked him to weigh in on those who had worked to repay their debts — and Cardona admitted that the mass cancellation would provide nothing for them.
Doocy: "The people that already paid their student loans, they don't get anything out of this deal."
Ed Sec Cardona: "Right."
pic.twitter.com/w6YQotUaAK— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 24, 2022
“Just the final one on this: The people that already paid their student loans, they don’t get anything out of this deal,” Doocy prompted.
“Right,” Cardona agreed.
“That’s right, okay,” Doocy confirmed.
Critics of the plan have argued that taxpayers will get something out of the mass cancellation of student debt — namely the bill. Because the federal government creates budgets that depend on predicted income — student loan payments included – the cancellation of a large chunk of that debt in one fell swoop would result in a lesser amount coming in. The government would then have to compensate for that shortfall by reducing spending or increasing taxes — and the latter happens with more regularity than the former.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a longtime proponent of student debt cancellation, had a similar reaction when she was asked whether people who had paid off their own student loans might qualify for some kind of reimbursement.
“My daughter is in school,” a man asked Warren at a 2020 campaign event. “I saved all my money just to pay my student loans. Can I have my money back?”
“Of course not,” Warren replied.
“So you want to help those who don’t save any money and the ones that do the right thing get screwed?” he asked.
Doocy also asked Cardona about comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — who said weeks earlier that President Joe Biden did not have the authority to unilaterally cancel student debt — and Cardona argued that a post-9/11 law allowed him to do so under certain conditions.
.@PDoocy: "Speaker Pelosi said last year, she thought this was something a president could not do. It would require an act of Congress. So is this legal?"
"The HERO's Act, page 637…gives me the authority to provide a waiver to ensure Americans are not worse off…" pic.twitter.com/hWF2hL3HhK
— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) August 24, 2022
“Speaker Pelosi said last year, she thought this was something a president could not do. It would require an act of Congress. So is this legal?” he asked.
“The HEROES Act, page 637 … gives me the authority to provide a waiver to ensure Americans are not worse off after an emergency — a national emergency — which the pandemic was.”