Republicans demand fact-check after Biden says student loan plan ‘got passed by a vote or two’

Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee are calling on President Biden for inaccurately claiming that a plan he unilaterally made to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans was a “law” that Congress narrowly passed.

Biden made the statement on a NowThis News presidential forum on Friday.

That was the same day Biden praised the plan and criticized the Republicans who criticized it, even as they accepted pandemic aid loans in some cases, as DailyMail.com reported.

As you probably know, I just signed a bill that is being challenged by my Republican colleagues, the same people who got PPP loans… in some cases up to 5 – 600,000 – they have no problem with that,” Biden said at the forum .

‘It is over. I passed it by one or two votes. And it’s in effect,” Biden said.

But Biden has grossly misunderstood how the program came about. He created it by executive order, to announce it last month as a way to deliver on a campaign promise.

It didn’t make it through Congress, despite some lawmakers saying months ago that it would take legislation to take effect.

Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee issued the statement on: Twitter.

‘Can anyone fact-check POTUS’ nonsense? Mr. President, you clearly need a refresh, so we remind you: you bypassed Congress to advance your student loans. Taxpayers and voters never agreed to pay off doctors’ and lawyers’ loans. @washingtonpost, Pinocchio test pls,” they wrote, inviting the paper’s fact-checker column to weigh in.

He discussed a variety of issues during the forum

It came one day when Biden announced debt forgiveness and criticized GOP critics who had personally received pandemic relief loans

Education and Labor panel of Republicans demanded a fact check on the comments

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had said in 2021 that only Congress could move to provide permanent aid

Instead, Biden chose to create the program through executive order, offering up to $10,000 debt forgiveness for individuals earning up to $125,000 and $20,000 for pell grant recipients.

The Justice Department said Biden’s move was approved by the HEROES ACT, which enabled a variety of actions under the national emergencies created by the pandemic.

But now that Biden has once explained the pandemic as circumstances have changed significantly, opponents of the move argue it was not properly grounded and multiple lawsuits are already pending against him that are only at the beginning of the trial. to be tried.

The government fact sheet announcing the plan was laced with references to the pandemic and described the program as a form of relief.

“Today, President Biden announces a three-part plan to give working families in America more breathing room as they continue to recover from the tensions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the administration wrote.

That came about a year after Chamber Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated her stance at the time: “People think the President of the United States has the power to cancel debt,” she said at a July 2021 news conference. “He doesn’t. He can delay. He may be delayed. But he doesn’t have that power. That must be an act of Congress.”

President Donald Trump signed the $900 million HEROES bill, which includes pandemic aid, shortly before his departure. Biden signed the US bailout plan, passed 50-49 by the Senate, as one of his first major moves as president.

Partly because it failed to pass Congress, the government was unable to provide an immediate cost estimate when it announced the plan. The Congressional Budget Office later estimated it could cost up to $400 billion.