Joe Biden is getting a lot of backlash over his illegal student loan bailout decision. Among the basic problems with the plan are that it is giving $10,000 to a select number of college-educated people who can make up to $125,000, while the rest of us have to pay for it.
But now, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is lying about the plan, trying to make it sound more palatable. She told not just a lie, but a truly stupid and obvious lie.
Here she is, claiming that this plan “gives relief to 90 percent of Americans that are making less than $75,000/year.”
That is just laughably untrue. The plan couldn’t possibly apply to 90 percent of Americans making less than $75,000 a year, because 90 percent wouldn’t have pending student loans. But she appears to be lying to make it sound like it would apply to as many people as possible.
Jean-Pierre not only said it during the White House briefing, but she also repeated the lie on CNN with Don Lemon. Lemon just nods his head and doesn’t push back on the impossibility of her statement.
She says Biden wants to give Americans “breathing room.” But, of course, this is a benefit for select, college-educated people to help buy their votes — that’s what this is about. It leaves out most Americans. Not only don’t most Americans get anything, but we also have to pay for the Democrats’ vote-buying effort.
Now, the claim that she may be trying to make is what Joe Biden says here — that 90 percent of the benefit of the program is going to people who make under $75,000.
But since she said it wrong more than once, she either doesn’t understand what she’s saying and/or she’s deliberately lying.
However, as Penn Wharton has noted, even Joe Biden’s interpretation of this is a lie as well. “Between 69 and 73 percent of the debt forgiven accrues to households in the top 60 percent of the income distribution,” Penn Wharton’s model observes.
Bottom line: if this had been about the “poor,” they would have at least done less than $125,000. This way, a couple with student loans who make 250,000 could get $20,000 paid for by the working and middle class.
But if the White House wants to push KJP’s lie, I think all the people who make less than $75,000 should now be asking the White House: Where is our $10,000 that you just promised us — you just said 90 percent of us would get it. Where is it? Hand it over.