Peter Doocy Grills KJP On Student Loan Relief: How Can The Country Afford Such A Massive Handout?

White House Press Briefing 

On Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre held a White House press briefing after President Biden announced his plan to cancel student loan debt for millions of Americans. Many Republicans are dismayed by this announcement. Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy continuously asked Jean Pierre how the country could afford such a massive handout and who would pay for it. 

Jean-Pierre shot down Doocy's line of questioning, reaffirming that the binding administration is forgiving loans responsibly. The press secretary defended the relief plan by claiming Biden has already reduced the deficit by 1.7 trillion dollars and that the inflation production act will add another 300 billion.

Peter Doocy: How can the country afford such a massive handout?

Karine Jean-Pierre said: I'm happy to have this discussion, If you look at what this president has done if you look at the end of this coming and the end of the fiscal year, 1.7 trillion dollars that we have deduced to bring down the deficit matters. And if you look at the inflation reduction act, it's going to add another 300 billion dollars, which is going to, uh, bring down the deficit again.

Peter Doocy: So you might spend an extra $300 to 900 billion dollars, so you can do that or not?

Press Secretary KJP responded, saying, "What we're trying to do here is do it responsibly; you heard directly from the president that this is something that is going to be important for middle-class Americans when you consider that 90 of the people who will actually benefit from this are making $75,000 or less, and you think about what Republicans did just a couple of years ago?" They signed off on a two-trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy and did not provide any way to pay for it. So again, here's what we have done.

What we are saying is that the work done by this administration and the Democrats in Congress is there, and you can see that the 1.7 trillion deficit in the deficit deduction that you see will benefit us in being able to do something for the middle class. This is about doing something for people who make less than 125, 000 1.7 trillion dollars. That's what we've been able to do.

Then Peter Doocy asked: But when you forgive the debt, you're not just disappearing debt, so who is paying for it?

We timed the pause just right. We're going to lift the pause at the end of this year, which is going to matter. That is going to offset a lot of what we're doing as well. When you think about the four billion dollars that are going to go back into, well, revenue back into this process of folks paying their college tuition, that matters as well. So we are doing this in a smart way. We're doing this in a way that's going to be effective. We're doing this in a way that keeps the president's promise of giving people who need some breathing room says Karine Jean-Pierre.