Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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BISMARCK, N.D. – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Budget Committee, discussed student loan forgiveness with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business. Excerpts and full video are below.
On Student Loan Forgiveness:
“I don’t really see how it’s a winning election issue because of the people that I talk to, the vast majority of them are very upset by the unfairness of this. Just yesterday, I was at a veterans appreciation event at the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation here in North Dakota. A Native American veteran came up to me and said exactly this. He said ‘you tell that President there’s a Native American veteran in North Dakota who wants his money back. I want my GI Bill benefits even back. If you’re going to do this, then what about me? I paid a price as well for my education.’ I think he represents probably millions of other people and for various reasons. In some cases, they didn’t accrue any debt. In some cases, they paid off their debt. In other cases, they had to make choices that led them a different direction—maybe to serve in the military so they could go to college. Then you have people who accumulated debt, but they didn’t do it through the federal system and so they’re not eligible, which brings up your point about whether he can even do it constitutionally. If he can, it’ll be for a very narrow group of people.”
“But to suggest somehow [student debt forgiveness] is the fair way, especially in inflationary time—giving away money for a product, by the way, that’s already more inflationary even than the Consumer Price Index and that is, of course, higher education.”
On the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act:
“After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which did not disproportionately help the wealthy but rather, as much as anything helped the middle class and the working class in this country, we had a booming economy. We had everybody working. We had salaries and wages going up. We had very low unemployment [and] very high wealth creation at every level, including young people getting jobs and getting paid well to do them.”
“Let’s cut taxes across the board. Let’s cut regulations. Let’s create more job opportunities and wealth.”