Begala: People Should ‘Earn’ Debt Relief, Student Loan Forgiveness Will ‘Piss off the Working Class’

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” Democratic strategist and CNN Contributor Paul Begala criticized proposals for President Joe Biden to forgive student loan debt by stating that “Democrats have gone from being the party of the factory floor to being the party of the faculty lounge.” And Democrats should “go back to their roots, which is, earn it.”

Begala stated, “We Democrats have a lab, two labs, actually, secret labs, one in Berkeley and one in Brooklyn, where we come up with ideas to completely piss off the working class, and it’s working wonderfully. … And they all have PhDs in pissing off the working class. Somehow, in my lifetime, the Democrats have gone from being the party of the factory floor to being the party of the faculty lounge. … [W]hat I’d much rather see Democrats do is go back to their roots, which is, earn it. We’re the party that created the G.I. Bill. Nobody called that free college because it wasn’t. The guys who got the G.I. Bill earned it. Why don’t we have a system where we say, you want to get out of your college debt? Serve your country. Marine Corps, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps. Not everybody can carry a rifle, but you can mentor a kid. And you give two years of service, then you will have earned that, and expand it so we have community college, job training. We need more mechanics, not MBAs. And that’s where the Democrats’ focus ought to be.”

He later added that college has gotten more expensive due to states decreasing subsidies for colleges and Congress should pass free community college.

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