The two candidates vying for Indiana’s Sixth Congressional District seat have different views on President Joe Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness plan.
Incumbent Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, criticized the plan as forcing taxpayers to fund someone else’s college education and called the move “political pandering during the election season.”
Democratic challenger Cinde Wirth said the plan is “a good start at providing breathing room to middle class and working people.”
Under the long-awaited forgiveness plan Biden announced Wednesday, more than 40 million Americans could see their student loan debt reduced — and in many cases eliminated — a historic but politically divisive move in the run-up to the midterm elections, The Associated Press reported.
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Biden is erasing $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000, according to wire reports. He’s canceling an additional $10,000 for those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college.
It’s seen as an unprecedented attempt to stem the tide of America’s rapidly rising student debt, but it doesn’t address the broader issue — the high cost of college.
In June, Americans held nearly $1.75 trillion in student loan debt, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Federal Reserve. Median student loan debt among Bartholomew County residents was $18,521 as of this past June, compared to a median of $19,346 in Indiana and $20,108 nationwide, according to the Urban Institute’s Debt in America 2022 report.
Republicans, including Pence, denounced the plan as an insult to Americans who have repaid their debt and to those who didn’t attend college, according to wire reports. Critics across the political spectrum also questioned whether Biden has authority for the move, and legal challenges are virtually certain.
“Joe Biden’s ‘plan’ does not cancel student loan debt,” Pence said in a statement. “It forces Hoosiers — whether you took out loans or not — to finance someone else’s college education. Worse still, this plan is nothing short of political pandering during the election season and will only serve to make the decades-high Bidenflation squeeze more painful. I oppose this administration’s deceitful proposed actions that would punish countless Hoosiers by forcing them to foot the bill for someone else’s agenda.”
Some fellow Democrats criticized the plan Wednesday, saying it’s too costly and does little to solve the debt crisis, according to wire reports. Still, many Democrats rallied around it, including support from those who wanted Biden to go beyond $10,000.
Wirth said she is supportive of the plan, as well as possibly making it “a little more aggressive” in the future depending on what kind of impact the current plan has.
“Maybe we can move forward if we need to move forward again and make it a little more aggressive, but overall, the pieces that are in it are just giving people incredible relief and hope,” Wirth said. “People who followed what they’ve been instructed to do, to get an education, a lot of them are stuck in a loop where they’re paying off the student loan seemingly forever.”
Wirth acknowledged that many people have complained about the fairness of the plan, but pointed to the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided forgivable loan to help small businesses stay open and their employees working during the pandemic.
Under the program, 1,300 forgivable loans totaling $44 million were issued to small businesses in Columbus, according to data from the Small Business Association.
Pence Group LLC, which is owned by Rep. Pence’s wife, was approved for a forgivable $79,440 loan in July 2020 as part of the program, according to government records.
“When we look at things like the Paycheck Protection Program, these were also forgivable loans,” Wirth said. “…It was the right thing to do to help working people, and I think (Biden’s student loan plan) is the same. It’s the right thing to do to help the working class and working people.”
Biden’s plan comes after more than a year of deliberation, with the president facing strong lobbying from liberals who wanted sweeping debt forgiveness, and from moderates and conservatives who questioned its basic fairness, according to wire reports.
This story is Andy East of The (Columbus) Republic, a sister newspaper of the Daily Journal. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
