Reality Test

On Aug. 25, 2022, the official Twitter account for the White Home posted a tweet criticizing feedback by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., during which she acknowledged her disagreement with the Biden administration’s plan to forgive some federal pupil mortgage debt.

Within the video included within the tweet above, Greene used an look on proper wing broadcaster Newsmax to opine that it’s “fully unfair” to some taxpayers, particularly those who didn’t take out a pupil mortgage, to “should repay the good massive pupil mortgage debt” of others.

The White Home’s clap-back tweet was in reference to studies that Taylor Business, a building firm owned by Greene and her husband, obtained cash by the Paycheck Safety Program (PPP). The tactic has been used to assault different conservatives, though within the case of commentator Ben Shapiro, it backfired as a result of he didn’t get a $20,832 PPP mortgage, as some had claimed.

U.S. Small Enterprise Administration (SBA) data present Greene’s firm accepted $182,300 in PPP mortgage cash in April 2020, and that it was “Paid in full or forgiven,” which refers to loans “repaid and people totally forgiven from compensation below PPP pointers,” per the SBA.

A database of PPP loans supplied by the nonprofit information outlet ProPublica, which obtained knowledge from the SBA through public data, exhibits that Taylor Business had a complete of $183,504 forgiven, together with accrued curiosity.

We reached out to Greene’s workplace asking for touch upon the controversy, and have been supplied a press release that didn’t tackle the scholar mortgage/PPP mortgage discourse, however as an alternative pointed to swatting incidents concentrating on Greene’s dwelling.

“It’s a disgrace that [U.S. President] Joe Biden and his spokesmen within the media proceed to make MTG a goal just because she is outspoken towards Democrat insurance policies, like genital mutilation surgical procedures for minors,” the assertion learn, a probable reference to surgical procedures carried out on some transgender individuals as a part of gender affirming care (though such procedures are hardly ever carried out on minors).

There’s vital context to this controversy, particularly that pupil loans and PPP loans are totally completely different of their goal and construction. PPP loans got through the COVID-19 pandemic to companies with the expectation that, if used as supposed, they might be forgiven. Many companies had no alternative however to stop or curtail operations through the peak of the pandemic, and this system was supposed to forestall them from shedding employees or going below. Scholar loans, alternatively, are sought by these in search of larger schooling and are taken out with the expectation that they are going to be paid again.

Sources:

Alonso, Melissa. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Residence ‘swatted’ for 2nd Night time in a Row.” CNN, 25 Aug. 2022, https://abc11.com/swatting-marjorie-taylor-greene-swatted-mtg/12164995/.

U.S. Small Enterprise Administration PPP database

Georgia Companies Division enterprise database