Laura Ingraham sent out most heartless statement on student loan forgiveness imaginable
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If you really want to know the how and the why—besides a general moral imperative to help improve generations of people languishing under the weight of stagnating wages, skyrocketing education and health costs—look no further than the recent GOP response to rumors that Joe Biden may finally do something to address his campaign promise to “immediately cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person.” Most recently, the Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act was introduced by Sens. John Thune, Bill Cassidy, Roger Marshall, Mike Braun, Richard Burr, and Sen. Mitt Romney. That bill, among other things, is set up to stop any president from using emergency powers to forgive federal loan debt.
Why so afraid of President Biden using executive powers to forgive tens of millions of Americans’ federal debt? On the one hand, conservatives believe that federal money should only go to the richest businesses that support GOP officials’ election campaigns and offer up cushy private sector jobs if and when those elected officials need to retire. On the other hand, conservatives admit that stagnating wages, skyrocketing education costs, predatory loan practices, and the like are unfair and dragging down an entire generation or two of Americans’ earnings and spending.
And on the third, most obvious hand, they are terrified that President Biden might do something that politically moves the needle by motivating young voters and Black voters who are essential to Democratic success this coming November.
On Thursday, right-wing wraith Laura Ingraham went to Twitter to give her two cents about student loan forgiveness. Spoiler alert: She is not for it. Trigger warning: Laura Ingraham gave the most ludicrous story of all time supporting her millionaire’s position, writing: “My mom worked as a waitress until she was 73 to help pay for our college, even helped with loan repayment. Loan forgiveness just another insult to those who play by the rules.”
Obviously, this statement brings to mind all kinds of questions. For example, what was Laura doing after college that her “waitress” mom, in her senior years, was paying for Laura’s bootstraps? Ingraham graduated with a B.A. from Dartmouth college in 1985 when she was 22 years old. Ingraham’s mother died in 1999 at the age of 79. Using my fancy calculator (remember all of those hands in the opening of this story?) this would mean that, as Laura tells it, from 1985 until around 1993, while Ingraham worked at New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and also worked as a speechwriter for the Reagan administration, her waitress mother paid for Dartmouth college.
Okay. Maybe. Whether or not Laura Ingraham tells the truth about anything that ever comes out of her mouth or is written onto a page in the public sphere is hard to say. Most of the time, she seems to lie in service of the current GOP talking point.
The responses to this were predictably awesome.
Wait. I said that! Let’s go to the “good book.”
And from another “Good Book.”
Maybe we are coming at this all wrong?
Maybe we should come at another way.
And boy, that was fast.
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