I know this is one of Chris’ features, but I figured I’d give it a try. And boy do I have a doozy!
Leftists have been circulating the following meme to attack Republicans who opposed President Biden’s Executive Order to forgive $10,000 of student loan debt.
On the surface, this looks like a slam dunk for the Left, but as you might expect, there’s a little more context to the situation.
Due to a little thing the kids like to call COVID-19, businesses were hurting with many struggling to meet payroll for their employees. As a result, the government passed the Paycheck Protection Program which offered loans for business owners to keep their doors open and hire back employees. Built into this program was a way for these loans to be forgiven, provided certain criteria were met. Keep this in mind because it will become very important later.
Now, for the list. I’ve done a bit of research into the names and figures and found some…interesting facts the meme doesn’t mention. I apologize in advance for some of the Leftist sources I had to link for information.
Matt Gaetz – I was unable to locate where he received a PPP loan, but a business his father is involved with received between $350,000 and $1 million in PPP loans. The only connection is the fact the Congressman owns stocks in the company.
Marjorie Taylor Greene – Taylor Greene did receive a PPP loan…for a construction company her husband and she own.
Greg Pence – Pence received a PPP loan…for a family business.
Vern Buchanan – Buchanan received a PPP loan…for three car dealerships he owns.
Kevin Hern – Hern received a PPP loan…for a company held in a family trust that controls 5 McDonalds franchises.
Roger Williams – Williams received a PPP loan…for a car dealership he owns.
Brett Guthrie – Guthrie was a director of a manufacturing company that received a PPP loan.
Ralph Norman – I don’t have firm data on this, but it’s my belief Norman received a PPP loan for a family business where he was a real estate developer.
Ralph Abraham – Abraham received a PPP loan…for two businesses he owns.
Mike Kelly – Kelly received a PPP loan…also for car dealerships.
Vicki Hartzler – Hartzler received a PPP loan…for farms and equipment supplier businesses her family own.
Markwayne Mullin – Mullin received a PPP loan…for plumbing and contracting firms he was tied to.
Carol Miller – Miller’s husband received a PPP loan for, you guessed it, car dealerships.
Although these Republicans or their family members had PPP loans forgiven, they voluntarily requested the loans and received them. Now, remember when I said earlier that PPP loans could be forgiven if certain criteria were met? Well, there’s a problem with the logic suggesting the aforementioned Republicans are hypocrites.
Federal student loans typically don’t come with forgiveness terms. The only exceptions to this prior to President Biden’s Executive Order were death or disablement. Granted, willingly going after a degree in some of the shit Leftist students major in these days would make a pretty convincing argument they are disabled, but I’m not sure the federal government would sign off on it.
Put simply, the expectation prior to the Executive Order was students taking out federal student loans was…they paid them back. There was no “pay it back unless an elderly President decides he needs votes to help his party during the midterm elections” clause in the loan documents that would make it okay. You either paid it back or you didn’t.
As a result, comparing PPP loans to federal student loans is like comparing horse shit to dog shit. Yes, they’re both piles of animal shit, but that’s where the similarities begin and end. To try to equate the two on the basis of one point of commonality is an example of intellectual dishonesty that has become the norm with political memes like the one I posted at the beginning of this piece.
And now you know, and as any kid of the 80s will tell you, knowing is half the battle.