Republicans who got PPP handouts and lobbied for tax cuts for their billionaire donors, now criticize relief for the needy with student loans. We mapped the GOP hypocrisy.
Who got the most from the GOP tax cuts? Republicans who took PPP money? Those criticizing President Biden's plan to offer student loan relief to the needy? Use the SLIDER and click on a state for details on billionaires who got GOP tax cuts, Republicans with PPP handouts and the number of people with student loans in a state.
Mapping Republican hypocrisy on student loan relief
Republican handouts for the rich
"President Joe Biden made Republicans mad: He announced something that will make millions of Americans’ lives significantly better. The 46th president announced that he was offering (modest) student loan forgiveness, erasing up to $10,000 in federal loans (and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients) and cutting monthly payments in half. It was time for Republicans to be horrible hypocrites. The Twitter account for the GOP House judiciary was among the critics, writing, simply, “If you take out a loan, you pay it back. Period.” Fair enough! Or it would be if so many Republicans didn’t also receive some form of loan forgiveness, in many cases not that long ago.
Indeed, many in the GOP, including lawmakers and pundits, participated in Donald Trump’s Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, receiving sizeable business loans at the height of the pandemic. In many cases, those loans went to larger businesses, as well as Trump pals. One of them was Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Georgia representative and recent “swatee” went on Newsmax, where she called the loan forgiveness “completely unfair.” She didn’t say so when her construction company’s $182,300 PPP loan generously went up in smoke." - Uproxx
How this StoryMap was created
This map was designed with ArcGIS StoryMaps to make it easy to contrast the Republican hypocrisy.
- Data from "Billionaires buying tax deductions" - Americans For Tax Fairness
- Trump Tax Cuts Have Failed To Deliver On GOP's Promises - NPR
- Holy Moly, There Sure Are A Ton Of Republicans Complaining About Loan Forgiveness Who Have Also Had Loans Forgiven - Uproxx
- White House fires back at GOP over student loan plan criticism - Axios
- Secret IRS Files Reveal How Much the Ultrawealthy Gained by Shaping Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Tax Cut” - ProPublica
- Federal Student Loan Relief - White House
The map can be freely embedded in a website with this line of code: < iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5224641e968946ff90f757957f96a1a7?header" width="100%" height="500px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen allow="geolocation"></iframe>
Ron Johnson (R-WI) lobbied for tax cuts for billionaire donors
Confidential tax records, however, reveal that Johnson’s last-minute maneuver benefited two families more than almost any others in the country — both worth billions and both among the senator’s biggest donors.The Inside Story of How We Reported the Secret IRS Files. Dick and Liz Uihlein of packaging giant Uline, along with roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, together had contributed around $20 million to groups backing Johnson’s 2016 reelection campaign.
The expanded tax break Johnson muscled through netted them $215 million in deductions in 2018 alone, drastically reducing the income they owed taxes on. At that rate, the cut could deliver more than half a billion in tax savings for Hendricks and the Uihleins over its eight-year life. But the tax break did more than just give a lucrative, and legal, perk to Johnson’s donors. In the first year after Trump signed the legislation, just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows. - ProPublica
White House fires back at GOP over student loan plan criticism
The White House is calling out Republican lawmakers who it says had Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans forgiven after they accused the Biden administration of giving out unfair handouts with its new student debt forgiveness plan. A video circulated this week of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) saying, "For our government just to say, 'OK, your debt is completely forgiven.' ... It's completely unfair." In response, the White House's official account on Thursday tweeted: "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven." - Axios
TakeAway: Vote for Democrats to reduce income inequality and not give more handouts to Republican billionaire donors.
Deepak
DemLabs
DISCLAIMER: ALTHOUGH THE DATA FOUND IN THIS BLOG AND INFOGRAPHIC HAS BEEN PRODUCED AND PROCESSED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE, NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED CAN BE MADE REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, LEGALITY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY SUCH INFORMATION. THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES TO ANY USES OF THE INFORMATION WHETHER ISOLATED OR AGGREGATE USES THEREOF.