MSNBC writer Ja’han Jones condemned Americans who oppose student loan handouts as "selfish" in a Monday column.
"To me, the undeniably positive impact of unchaining millions of people from loans that preyed on their desire to be educated is more worthy of attention than naysayers who oppose forgiveness for selfish or misguided reasons," Jones said of President Biden's $330 billion loan handout plan. "In that latter group, I include the majority in a recent CNBC online survey who said they fear loan forgiveness will worsen inflation."
Jones updated his piece on Wednesday to celebrate the announcement that Biden will cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. In addition, the president will continue the pause on loan payments until the end of this year.
Despite inflation concerns and the national debt being over $30.7 trillion, the Biden administration moved forward with their long teased proposal of canceling some student loan debt.
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Jones offered a "Hot take" that theorized the only way Biden would let the pause on student loan payments expire is if "he’s possessed — ‘Ghost’-style — by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky." Suggesting that "Doing so would be stupidly self-injurious."
He also called for Biden to think bigger.
"I see no reason for the administration not to go as big as possible," and that "student loan forgiveness" would be beneficial for "key demographics in the Democratic Party — namely, women and nonwhite people," he wrote.
The writer condemned loan repayment as if it were a form of prison, saying Biden's action will "unchain" many Americans.
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He warned readers that "we shouldn’t defer to armchair economists or rote capitalists who want us to fear more Americans having money" and cautioned that the Biden administration "shouldn’t get in its own way, just after passing the most ambitious climate package in U.S. history."
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During the White House press briefing on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked by Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy who will pay for Biden's plan.
"When you forgive debt, you're not just disappearing debt, so who is paying for this?" Doocy asked.
Jean-Pierre replied that once the pause on student loan payments is lifted at the end of 2022, the funds will "offset a lot of what we're doing as well."
"When you think about the $4 billion that's going to go back into, as revenue, back into this process as folks paying their college tuition, that matters as well," she said. "We're doing this in a smart way. We're doing this in a way that's going to be effective."
Fox News' Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
