At a campaign event in Iowa, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was confronted about her plan to eliminate college debt.
On Monday, Warren held a town hall in Grimes, Iowa, where a father — who said he saved up money to pay for his daughter’s college tuition — asked her if he would get his money back for doing the “right thing.”
“My daughter’s getting out of school. I’ve saved all my money. She doesn’t have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?” He asked.
“Of course not,” Warren responded.
“So you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money, and those of us who did the right thing get screwed,” he retorted.
Watch the exchange below:
"I've saved all my money. [My daughter] doesn't have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?"@eWarren: "Of course not."
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 23, 2020
"So you're going to pay for people who didn't save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed." pic.twitter.com/eqK7o4Cl9Q
Warren rejected that notion that anybody would get “screwed.”
“Of course we did. My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations. I saved my money. He made more than I did. But I worked a double shift, worked extra — my daughter worked since she was 10. So, you’re laughing,” he said.
When she denied that she was laughing, he said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what you’re doing. We did the right thing, and we get screwed.”
In her plan to tackle the college debt crisis, Warren says she will cancel up to $50,000 in student loans for individuals making less than $100,000 a year.
Warren said she would order the Education Department to get rid of millions of dollars in student debt — instead of trying to get such legislation approved by Congress.
“The Department of Education has broad authority to end that crisis. When I am president, I plan to use that authority.”
Warren has, at times, struggled to sell her progressive policies. After she laid out her Medicare for All plan, she suffered a drop in the polls amid scrutiny of how she would pay for it.
As The New York Times notes, she has focused mostly on an anti-corruption message in the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses.