PanamaTimes

Wednesday, Mar 12, 2025

Bernie Sanders says Republicans complaining about student debt forgiveness didn't complain when Donald Trump declared bankruptcy 6 times

Bernie Sanders says Republicans complaining about student debt forgiveness didn't complain when Donald Trump declared bankruptcy 6 times

It's the war of loan forgiveness, as Republicans and Democrats continue to go back and forth over President Joe Biden's decision to relieve student debt.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in on Friday with a typically fiery response.

"I hear Republicans complaining about $20,000 in student debt forgiveness. Funny, I didn't hear those complaints when Trump declared bankruptcy 6 times & had $287 million in loans forgiven by big banks," Sanders tweeted. "The GOP l-o-v-e-s socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the rest."

On Wednesday, Biden announced up to $20,000 in student-loan forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients making under $125,000 a year, along with up to $10,000 in relief for other federal borrowers under the same income cap. As expected, Republican lawmakers were quick to slam the announcement, with many arguing the broad forgiveness is costly and unfair to taxpayers.

It's a criticism that Biden himself was quick to rebuke, questioning the fairness of taxpayers subsidizing tax breaks for multi-billion dollar companies and pointing out the GOP lawmakers who received business loan forgiveness during the pandemic.

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton was correct to assert in 2016 that Donald Trump had "taken business bankruptcies six times." Trump had said it happened four times, and told the Post that he was tallying the first three bankruptcies as one. The New York Times found in a 2020 analysis of his tax returns that Trump had around $287 million in debt forgiven.

Sanders is not the first Democrat to scrutinize GOP pushback on Biden's relief. After Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the president's student-loan forgiveness "astonishingly unfair," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was quick to respond by noting that when McConnell graduated from University of Louisville, he only paid $330 in annual tuition.

"Senator McConnell graduated from a school that cost $330 a year," Warren wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "Today it costs over $12,000. McConnell has done nothing to fix it — and is irate that the President is stepping up to help millions of working Americans drowning in debt. He can spare us the lectures on fairness."

The White House itself has also taken to Twitter to call out some Republican lawmakers by name — those who have complained about Biden's relief while also having gotten their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans forgiven. While GOP Sen. Marco Rubio wrote in a Friday op-ed that PPP loans and student loans are not comparable, National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti said "we absolutely think it's a fair comparison."

The Education Department is set to announce further details on Biden's relief plans in the coming weeks, and an application for the loan forgiveness is set to become live in early October.
Newsletter

Related Articles

PanamaTimes
0:00
0:00
Close
Mark Carney Selected as Leader of Canada's Liberal Party, Poised to Assume the Role of Prime Minister
Pope Francis Displays Signs of Recovery, Yet His Hospitalization Persists.
Trump Administration Unveils Self-Deportation App for Undocumented Immigrants
Trump Administration Plans New Travel Ban Including Afghanistan and Pakistan
Global Scam Syndicate Capitalizes on Fraudulent Celebrity Advertisements to Deceive Thousands
Devastating Passing of 20-Year-Old American Bodybuilder Sparks Health Worries
Microsoft to Sunset Skype in May, Prioritizing Teams as Communication Evolves
Katy Perry Set to Join All-Female Crew for Blue Origin Flight
Apple Resolves iPhone Dictation Bug That Linked 'Racist' to 'Trump'
Proposal Introduced for $250 Bill Featuring Donald Trump
Research Examines Possible Connection Between COVID-19 Vaccines and Post-Vaccination Syndrome
Latin America News Update: Gatherings, Legal Conflicts, and Economic Developments
Vatican Declares Pope Francis' Health Status as 'Critical'
Mexico Suggests Constitutional Amendments to Protect Sovereignty Following U.S. Terrorist Labels on Cartels
Tequila Sector Faces Oversupply Challenge as Agave Prices Fall Sharply
Pope Francis Continues His Hospital Stay While Doctors Treat Complicated Infection
AI Giants Contest Nvidia's Supremacy with Emerging Chip Innovations
California's CalExit Movement Grows Momentum Amid Political and Economic Discourse in the State
Trump Asserts BRICS 'Is Finished' In Light of Tariff Threats
CPJ Report Indicates Highest Number of Journalists Killed in 2024
Climate change presents considerable threats to worldwide cocoa production.
Apple Releases Critical Security Update Following Vulnerability Reports
Justin Bieber Sparks Concern as New Footage Raises Health Fears
Trump Administration Directs Admiral to Leave Official Residence in Three Hours
US Confiscates Second Aircraft Associated with Maduro's Government
The Trump administration is considering El Salvador's proposal to accommodate U.S. prisoners.
Trump Wins Again as Canada Agrees to Strengthen Border Security
Wall Street Journal Criticizes Trump's Trade War with Canada and Mexico
Trump Freezes Tariffs on Mexico After Agreement on Border Security
Nearly 96% of New Cars Registered in Norway in January Were Electric
Marco Rubio Urges Panama to Limit Chinese Influence Amid Canal Dispute
Apple Surpasses Revenue and Earnings Expectations, But iPhone Sales Disappoint
Bill Gates Reflects on Past Mistakes and Acknowledges Yuval Noah Harari's Insight
Trump Imposes Emergency Tariffs on Colombia Following Immigration Dispute
Musk and X Intensify Legal Battle Over Advertising Boycott, Suing Nestlé, LEGO, and Shell
Trump: Canada Should Become the 51st U.S. State
U.S. President Trump Asserts Intent to Reclaim Panama Canal Amid Rising Geopolitical Tensions
Panama Rules Out Negotiations With US Over Control of Canal
The 'Chinese Pearl Harbor' on U.S. Tech: DeepSeek's Launch Triggers Market Collapse
Key Takeaways from the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos
The Trump Era 2: A Time of Dramatic and Profound Change
Five Billionaires on Track to Break One Trillion Dollar Wealth Barrier
Bill Ackman Praises Social Media Platform X as 'The New Media'
California Wildfires Set to Become Costliest in U.S. History
Chief Justice Roberts Warns Against Threats to Judicial Independence
Generation Z Faces Scrutiny Over Workplace Readiness
Democrats Call on Biden to Protect Controversial Temporary Protected Status Program
Trinidad and Tobago Declares State of Emergency as Murder Rates Surge
Migrant Children Abandoned at U.S.-Mexico Border
The Closure of the Global Engagement Center: Controversy, Claims, and Conclusions
×