Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who is in his first term, is among the Republicans who have bitterly complained about ambitions from the Biden administration to forgive Americans’ student loans. The ranting from Mullin continued just this Wednesday in a statement posted to Twitter that metrics on the site claimed had already been viewed over 650,000 times.
There’s a big issue, though. Mullin’s own businesses — which he has since sold to another company — benefited majorly from loan forgiveness programs initially established under the Trump administration! (Mullin may still have a financial connection following that sale, as Mullin previously reported a significant financial stake in the company that made the purchase.) The loan funds from which Mullin seems to have benefited were the monies made available under the Paycheck Protection Program, and across his related businesses, the operations benefited from about $1.4 million, according to reports. Just Mullin Plumbing Inc., which was among similarly named business operations, received apparently $706,800 in forgiven loans!
And yet, he was emphatic in his rejection of the idea of forgiving student loans for individual borrowers, many of whom might have financial obligations far under what Mullin’s companies accumulated from the government. “If you take out a loan, you pay it back,” the Senator recently insisted. “A student loan is no different from a house or car loan — taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill. Student debt transfer is reckless and unfair to the 87% of Americans who either never took out loans or responsibly paid them back.”
Some Twitter users posted screenshots of publicly available information about the loans obtained by Mullin’s companies in reply to the Senator. The loan money for Mullin Plumbing Inc. was both approved and forgiven before the sale to that other firm was finalized, as the forgiveness came in late 2020, with name rights transferred to that other company, called HomeTown Services, in 2022. Other prominent Republicans, like Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), have also been tied to loans accumulated under that federal program despite their own opposition to forgiving some of Americans’ debt held after time in higher education.
Cash or check then? https://t.co/L3bhBJHSh9 pic.twitter.com/Mi0A3KUfqt
— Okie Political Memes (@OKPoliticalMeme) May 31, 2023
