Michael Hiltzik: Are Republicans who got pandemic debt relief hypocrites for complaining about student debt relief? Yes

You may have noticed over the last few days that the political world is in an uproar over President Joe Biden's dispensing of student debt relief.

It's not so much that Biden implemented the relief program at all; what got politicians and pundits in a tizzy was that he called out the GOP naysayers in the House by pointing out that many of them had received business loans via the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, that had never been paid back.

The White House tweeted out the forgiven PPP balances of 13 GOP House members critical of student loan relief, under the heading, "This you?"

That's a really unfair comparison, the argument goes, because the PPP loans were never intended to be paid back. Under the program terms, the loans would be forgiven if the money was used to support the workers of a small business that had been forced to close or curtail operations because of pandemic restrictions.

In other words, it's said, the PPP money was never expected to be repaid. By contrast, student loans were taken out in full expectation that