A staffer for a Democratic congresswoman boasted online Wednesday that President Biden’s student loan bailout — an executive action that his boss publicly opposed in the past — had been extended to him
“Just got a call to let me know my student debt has been canceled,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s (D-Ohio) communications director Ben Kamens posted on X.
“This is why elections matter. Thanks @JoeBiden,” added Kamens, sharing a picture of the form which read, “Congratulations! The Biden-Harris Administration has forgiven your federal student loan(s) … in full.”
Kamens had $8,250 in student loans dating as far back as 2010 forgiven by the Education Department’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, which is expected to bilk US taxpayers of $475 billion over the next 10 years.
The Kaptur spokesman netted around $80,000 in 2023, according to the congressional staff salary database on LegiStorm.
In Ohio’s Ninth Congressional District, which Kpatur represents, the median household income was $62,077, US Census Bureau data shows.
Kamens’ post had received more than 18.7 million views as of Thursday morning, with many netizens slamming the Kaptur aide and pointing out the address listed on the form was a half-million dollar house in Pennsylvania.
“No doubt the working people of America are thrilled to step in because, despite having received the service you took out the loan to buy, you couldn’t be bothered to pay off $8,250 in principal in fourteen years—which is $589/year,” National Review senior editor Charles C.W. Cooke remarked acidly on X.
“You’re welcome. Freeloader,” added Fox News late-night host Greg Gutfeld.
“Yes I enjoy ‘free’ stuff that other people pay for as well,” snarked Ilya Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute.
“‘This is why elections matter’ is quite a damning indictment of the way politics is currently functioning,” added Jeryl Bier. “We’ve gone from a revolution over ‘taxation without representation’ to ‘vote for those who will tax others to pay off my personal debts.’”
Kamens did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden, 81, announced the SAVE Plan in July 2023, weeks after the Supreme Court overturned his earlier $430 billion student debt cancellation attempt for more than 40 million borrowers.
Kaptur had criticized the earlier move by the Biden administration to unilaterally forgive the debt, citing political, fiscal and constitutional issues.
“What about the people who paid off their loans?” she was quoted as saying in August 2022 by the Sandusky Register.
“What about the people who didn’t rack up that level of debt? What about people who put college on hold? What about the systemic problems we have in the student loan program, where you walk into an admissions office at a college and they give you a credit card, and you get the money, and you can spend the money on a car or a vacation or whatever, and then the student doesn’t graduate,” Kaptur went on.
“There was no consultation with Congress. The last time I checked the Constitution, you can’t impact the bottom line of the federal treasury without some bill moving through Congress,” she added.
“I think the president probably overreached his authority on this one.”
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s implementation of the student debt cancellation, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying he lacked “‘clear congressional authorization’ to justify the challenged program.”
“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “So too here, where the Secretary of Education claims the authority, on his own, to release 43 million borrowers from their obligations to repay $430 billion in student loans. The Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude.”
Roberts added that the administration had fallen short of demonstrating that it had “‘clear congressional authorization’ to justify the challenged program.”
Despite her earlier public opposition, Kaptur voted twice against House measures expressing disapproval with the federal loan cancellations — once before and once after the high court’s decision.
“It’s obvious Joe Biden’s unconstitutional student loan forgiveness sham is the easiest way for him to buy votes, but Marcy Kaptur’s voting record in support for this scheme shows just how out of touch she is with the voters of Northwest Ohio” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers had also opposed the bailout for forcing taxpayers who paid off their loans — or never attended college — to shoulder the burden of others’ student debt.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has said the SAVE Plan is no different.
“Make no mistake, Biden’s newest student loan scheme only transfers the burden from those who willingly took out loans to Americans who never attended college or who already fulfilled their commitment to pay off their loans,” Cassidy said last July, ripping the income-driven repayment rule “irresponsible” and “unfair.”
As the Biden administration has continued to cancel other portions of student borrowers’ loans through a piecemeal approach, Cassidy has gone further and accused the president of engaging in an election-year “ploy” for votes.
“This is an unfair ploy to buy votes before an election,” he said in April, “and does absolutely nothing to address the high cost of education that puts young people right back into debt.”
