Former Vice President Mike Pence started a presidential campaign in June of 2023, but formally dropped out just four months later. Pence, who served as Vice President under Trump, ran on a platform based on conservative religious values, reducing government spending, and pro-Ukraine foreign policy.
Notably, Pence was openly against student loan forgiveness, tweeting, “Joe Biden’s massive trillion-dollar student loan bailout subsidizes the education of elites on the backs of hardworking Americans, and it was an egregious violation of the Constitution for him to attempt to do so unilaterally with the stroke of the executive pen.”
Mike Pence on Loan Forgiveness
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court would agree with Pence when they struck down the student loan bailout Biden tried to launch. Though Pence was vocally against student loans, he was a staunch supporter of President Trump’s Paycheck Protection Plan loans during the pandemic.
PPP loan forgiveness cost the taxpayers $760 billion. Biden’s student debt forgiveness program would have cost less than half of that.
One of the recipients of the (later forgiven) PPP loans was his brother, GOP politician Greg Pence. Greg Pence had an $80,000 loan forgiven.
Many other politicians, including Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, and Markwayne Mullin (who took a sizable $1.4 million in PPP loans) were also recipients of PPP loans that were later forgiven. Likewise, all three Congress members take a hard stand against student debt forgiveness.
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Taxpayer-Funded Relief
Federal Election Commission allows donation matching to presidential hopefuls who raise a total of $100,000 across 20 different states. Candidates must collect at least $5,000 in donations from each state in order to qualify.
The rules of donation also specify that the $5,000 cannot come from a single donor. The maximum donation per donor to reach the $5,000 per state rule is $250.
Pence dropped out of the presidential race months earlier, incurring $1.3 million in debt before he did. In a surprise retroactive move, the Mike Pence presidential campaign applied for FEC funding to help cover the bill.
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Originally, the FEC deemed his final application date to be October 28, 2023—roughly the time that he dropped out of the presidential race. The FEC changed course and allowed the fundraising match to happen retroactively.
Though this may appear illegal at first glance, the FEC has a rule that states that “candidates may continue to request public funds to pay off campaign debts until the first Monday of March of the year following an election.”
Pence’s Campaign Donors
Prior to dropping out of the race, Pence collected large sums of money from several major PACs, including the Committed To America PAC and the Great America SuperPAC. Through his campaign, Pence raised $5.5 million with 58 percent coming from large donors offering a minimum of $200.
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The funding to cover Pence’s debt will come directly from taxpayers. More specifically, the funds will come from the money collected from the $3 checkbox on individual income tax returns.
If Pence’s campaign qualifies for donation matching, Pence will receive $100,000 to apply towards his debt. He will be liable for the $1.2 million dollar difference.
