Marco Rubio isn’t taking White House criticism lying down.
A day after the White House launched a Twitter attack on lawmakers who benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program but disapprove of the Biden administration’s decision to ease student debt, Rubio fired back.
The Florida senator, one of the PPP law’s co-authors claimed the White House’s media blitz is misguided.
Dan Holler, Rubio’s chief of staff, said in an email to The New York Daily News Friday that “federal student loans were just that, loans.”
Holler said that according to Rubio — who co-drafted bipartisan legislation that resulted in the forgiveness of roughly $400 billion in business loans — PPP was created as a payroll grant “structured deliberately as a forgivable loan” and that 80% of all funds were to have been used to keep employees paid during a national health crisis.
Opponents of the White House’s initiative argue that students who secured loans did so with the understanding they would be responsible for money borrowed.
Rubio’s office claims PPP saved 55 million jobs nationally. The 51-year-old Republican from Miami considers his legislation “a stunning success.”
Rubio’s chief of staff Michael Needham followed up on Twitter Friday, calling the White House’s efforts to compare student loan forgiveness and corporate loan forgiveness is this instance “disingenuous.”
In April, Forbes concluded that PPP is considered by “many” to have worked.
“Despite issues with fraud and ongoing challenges posed by loan forgiveness, the program helped millions of small business owners stay in business and prevented further panic at an already anxious time,” the financial publication reported.
The Justice Department continues to investigate claims of impropriety with regard to PPP loans. Feds say they have charged more than a hundred defendants with fraud.
The White House trumpeted its proposal to reduce student debt not only as an investment in the future, but as an answer to an ongoing problem.
More than 40 million people will be eligible for $10,000 in student loan relief, the White House said Friday.
