Though he promised to answer students’ questions via text message throughout the week, President Obama instead traveled to Africa, relegating his texting duties to the fingers of one man: Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden followed Obama’s lead in declining to answer any of The Daily Caller News Foundation’s questions, but we continued to receive texts containing the answers to other people’s questions.
On Thursday, Biden answered a Georgia woman’s question.
“Hey, everybody. Joe Biden, here,” wrote the vice president in a text message. “I’ll be answering your Qs for the President while he is in Africa. Fatima in GA asked if students should worry about student loan debt given the current job market. Great question, Fatima. Nothing is more impt than college edu. We’ve boosted Pell Grants & higher ed tax credits, income based-repayment caps payment at 10% of income & launched a College Scorecard to compare your options. Work study, scholarship, community college can help, but we also need Congress to act to keep interest rates from doubling. Keep asking Qs. Back tomorrow! -vp”
“Tomorrow’s the last day & VP Biden will respond to 1 more Q,” said the text. “Don’t let your BFF miss out. Respond with their phone number (xxx-xxx-xxxx) to invite them.”
The acronym “BFF” stands for “best friends for life.”
The DCNews Foundation tested whether activists at DoSomething.org — the group running the promotion in cooperation with the White House — would actually text people if you sent in their phone numbers. Indeed, they do.
“Your friend… wants to invite u to an exclusive DoSomething.org opp to text with President Obama (seriously). Reply Y,” DoSomething wrote in a text message to a phone number supplied by The DCNews Foundation. The text did not clarify that Biden — rather than Obama — would be taking over texting duties for the rest of the week.
In other news, Congress failed to act on the student loan issue before the July 1 deadline, at which point interest rates will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. A fix could still be applied retroactively, however.
Breanna Deutsch contributed to this report.
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