Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) proposed legislation on Tuesday that would tax “woke” universities’ endowments and cancel student loans for “criminal” protestors.
Cotton unveiled the Woke Endowment Security Tax (WEST) Act, a bill that would institute a six-percent excise tax on the endowments of 11 American universities, using the proceeds to pay down the national debt and secure the southern border.
“We should levy this tax on these schools’ endowments. A tax on the billions of dollars these schools have amassed would be more than enough to pay down our national debt or secure the southern border,” Cotton said in a written statement, noting that many of these universities have become wellsprings of anti-Israel protests.
The excise tax would apply to secular institutions with endowments of at least $11.9 billion and secular institutions with endowments of at least $10.5 billion that also operate a state contract college. Cotton’s office believes that the bill would generate $16.6 billion in revenue.
These institutions are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Columbia, Washington University, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell.
Cotton also proposed the No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act, a bill that would prevent any campus protestor convicted of a crime from receiving federal student loans or student loan relief.
“American taxpayers shouldn’t underwrite the tuition of criminal, pro-Hamas protesters who deface their college campuses, disrupt classes, and endanger their fellow students. My bill will bring learning back to the heart of our American universities and institutions,” Cotton said in a statement about the bill.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has proposed going after Ivy League endowments to pay off students loans and other debts.
“You want to pay for these student loans? — which we shouldn’t even do in the first place — Go tax those big liberal Ivy League endowments, but that’s not what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re going to take this money out of the hides of hard-working Americans in the form of either direct payments or by borrowing more money, screwing over the future kids and grandkids of this country.”
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