Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued that student loan relief appeals to “sort of young unemployed slackers smoking bongs” on his Verdict podcast Thursday.
Cruz commended the Supreme Court’s decision to throw out President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive student loans. The decision came in a 6-3 ruling last week that denied millions up to $20,000 of debt relief proposed by the Biden administration.
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The Republican senator argued, “That’s the sort of people who during COVID, they wanted to pay not to work. Well, if you’re not working, it’s hard to pay your student loans, and suddenly Democrats have told a bunch of 23-year-olds, ‘You don’t gotta work, man. That’d be mean to make you work.’”
“There’s a second group, which is the constituencies, which is the universities, and the universities have become entrenched pits of Marxism,” Cruz added, previously noting student loans is an issue on which the “Democrats have a confluence”.
Biden launched another effort shortly after the Supreme Court ruling to forgive some federal student loan debt using authority from the Higher Education Act of 1965 to create debt forgiveness regulation. The law allows for the provision of government-backed student loans, and it states the Education Department has the power to “compromise, waive or release loans.”
About 1 in 5 Americans have student loans, according to a Nerdwallet analysis using data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Per the Education Data Initiative, most borrowers are 25 to 34 years old, and federal borrowers in this age range owe an average debt of $33,570.
Cruz said one reason the Biden administration is pushing their student loan plan was to “get [young people] to go vote Democrat.”
He listed many people the plan would hurt, including those who didn’t get a college degree, truck drivers, steel workers, and union members, saying the proposed plan forces American families to pay off college degrees. Cruz noted in a press release last year that every taxpayer will pay “an average of $2,100” under Biden’s student loan debt cancellation plan.
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Cruz pointed to it taking “almost two decades” to pay off his own student loans, emphasizing the Biden administration was negatively affecting “everyone who did get a college degree who actually saved up and paid for their college degree.”
“Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was a fundamental assault on the limitations of the power of the president & the requirement that it is Congress that appropriates money,” Cruz tweeted Thursday evening. “Yet, he is reacting to anyone who would hold him to account with disdain.”
