The White House is calling out Republican lawmakers who it says had Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans forgiven after they accused the Biden administration of giving out unfair handouts with its new student debt forgiveness plan.
Driving the news: A video circulated this week of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) saying, "For our government just to say, 'OK, your debt is completely forgiven.' ... It's completely unfair." In response, the White House's official account on Thursday tweeted: "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven."
- In similar comments, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) tweeted, "Asking plumbers and carpenters to pay off the loans of Wall Street advisors and lawyers isn’t just unfair. It's also bad policy."
- Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) tweeted, "This places undue burden on those already suffering due to the weight of Biden’s failed economic policy."
- Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) also claimed the plan forces Americans to pay for other people's college degrees.
Worth noting: Kelly later followed up with another tweet on Friday, saying, "A Democrat governor declared my family's business non-essential and shut our doors. This money saved over 160 essential jobs in Western Pennsylvania during the pandemic. PPP loans are designed to be forgiven. Student loans are not."
The big picture: The official White House Twitter account listed the value of what it said was each lawmaker's forgiven PPP loans in corresponding tweets: Kelly at $987,237, Mullin at over $1.4 million and Hern at over $1 million....
- The White House tweeted that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) had forgiven PPP loans of $482,321