On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said the Biden White House pointing to Republican members of Congress who got Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans forgiven to respond to criticism of its student loan program is wrong because the PPP loans were designed to preserve jobs and were designed to be forgiven, while student loans “are things people signed promising to pay them back.” He also stated that the response lacked class, and “if you’re going to be unclassy, be smart about it. Don’t be dumb about it if you’re not classy.”
Brooks said the response was “Juvenile and not their best moment. The PPP was designed to help people preserve jobs in the moment [of a] pandemic. Those loans were not meant to be paid back. These college loans are things people signed promising to pay them back. Sometimes, life happens and, as I say, sometimes we should help forgive debt [of] somebody who’s just trying to make it into the middle class. But it’s just not an apt comparison. And the Biden White House has been classy. And this was not that classy. And if you’re going to be unclassy, be smart about it. Don’t be dumb about it if you’re not classy.”
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