White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hailed the Biden administration’s “historic” deficit reduction while answering questions about how much the student loan measure will cost and how it will be paid for.
Jean-Pierre told reporters at Thursday’s daily White House press briefing that Biden’s “record on fiscal responsibility is second to none.”
Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan during his first year in office, followed by a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. He suggested a $3 trillion Build Back Better climate and social welfare spending bill but had to settle for a much smaller one.
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That smaller reconciliation bill, titled the Inflation Reduction Act, contained $430 billion in spending. However, the White House has claimed the bill, including tax increases, will reduce deficits by $275 billion.
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The Biden administration has led to smaller budget deficits as the country pulls out of the pandemic as a sign of fiscal responsibility, hearkening back to the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton associated Democrats with balanced budgets and lower interest rates.
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“Last year, we cut the deficit by more than $350 billion,” Biden said as he rolled out his student loan plan on Wednesday. “This year, we’re on track to cut it by more than $1.7 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The single-largest deficit reduction in a single year in the history of America.”
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Biden’s job approval ratings on the economy have struggled as inflation, prompted partly by high federal spending, has mounted to a 41-year high. He has approved or proposed trillions of dollars in additional spending. The White House hasn’t offered an estimate as to how much the student loan debt relief program will cost, despite criticism from Democrats running in competitive races this fall.
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The President has nevertheless contrasted his approach to that of the Republicans.
“I will never apologize for helping Americans working, working Americans and middle-class, especially not to the same folks who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations, that slowed the economy, didn’t do a hell of a lot for economic growth, and wasn’t paid for and racked up this enormous deficit,” Biden said on Wednesday. “Just as we’ve never apologized when the federal government forgave almost every single cent of over $700 billion in loans to hundreds of thousands of small businesses across … America during the pandemic.”
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“No one complained that those loans caused inflation,” he added. Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Biden’s economic stewardship is its own way of paying for student loan debt forgiveness.
“We do believe it will be fully paid for because of the work this president has done with the economy,” she told reporters.
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