If anyone should “check his privilege,” shouldn’t it be the spouse of a Joe Biden Cabinet Secretary? Chasten Buttigieg decided to share his feelings on social media about a notice that his student loan payments would have to resume after the first of the year. Oddly, the man whose husband earned almost a million dollars (or more!) the past couple of years before becoming Biden’s Transportation Secretary thinks he shouldn’t have to repay his loans (via Twitchy):

The husband of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appears less than enthusiastic about having to repay his student loans.

Chasten Buttigieg, who recently became a father to newborn twins with the transportation secretary, posted a screenshot on Instagram Saturday of a notification that his student loan relief from the COVID-19 pandemic will expire on January 31, 2022.

“Chasten, your student loan payments restart after January 31, 2022,” the notice read, according to a screenshot tweeted by Politico’s Michael Stratford. “You’ll soon receive a bill from your student loan servicer.”

“LOL no thank you Merry Christmas next,” Chasten captioned the post.

For context, let’s look at the income that the Buttigieges earned in 2019 and 2020, according to financial disclosures released in January as part of Pete Buttigieg’s confirmation process:

The former South Bend, Indiana mayor, who was nominated to be Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, reported earning $800,000 to $1.8 million from January 2019 to December 2020 on a new financial disclosure form, which lists his income and assets in broad ranges.

Like other presidential candidates before him, Buttigieg earned the bulk of that money from book deals and other media engagements. His memoir, Shortest Way Home, brought in somewhere between $100,000 and $1 million in royalties, according to the disclosure. Buttigieg reported making another $54,000 in advances for British rights to the book and $2,100 for Korean rights to the book. Buttigieg’s second title, Trust: America’s Best Chance, was published in October and came with a $311,500 advance.

Beyond books, Buttigieg disclosed that he received a $150,000 guaranteed payment for a podcast with iHeartMedia called “The Deciding Decade.” Launched in September, Buttigieg hosted 20 episodes, interviewing guests such as musician John Legend, “Saturday Night Live” cast member Colin Jost and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Buttigieg also received a $1,825 honorarium to guest-host an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last year.

Since then, the Buttigieges get $221,000 a year in salary from Pete’s gig as Secretary of Transportation. (Chasten himself became a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics this year, but it’s not clear if that involves an income.) That may not be One Percenter money, but it’s still well over three times the average household income in the US. And it’s not as if Chasten didn’t reap the benefits of his taxpayer-guaranteed education loan, at least according to Wikipedia. Chasten got a bachelor’s degree in theater and global studies at the University of Wisconsin, moved to DePaul for a masters in eduction, and then pursued Montessori credentials from Xavier University in 2017.

Chasten got the education he wanted. Now he refuses to pay his “fair share” back to the taxpayers? Not even for the “common good”?

As Matt Whitlock points out, Chasten would hardly be an exception to the kind of people who would benefit from canceling student-loan debt, either:

These are the guys who complained that they couldn’t afford rent in DC on Pete’s $220K salary (and all their money from writing books).

A good reminder that the left’s “cancel student loan debt” goal would overwhelmingly help financially comfortable people. https://t.co/OnFsQqXY0o

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) December 12, 2021

Bear in mind that this is the same man who complained about the cost of living in the Beltway area … while he and Pete bought a house on Lake Michigan in Traverse City. He needs it for his “escape,” he told the Washington Post in July:

The Buttigieges themselves moved into an 800-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment near Eastern Market. “We couldn’t afford the one-bedroom-plus-den,” Chasten says. They chose the high-end building because of its location and the security it offered — the couple has faced threats and even a break-in back in South Bend. Rent for currently available two-bedrooms start at $5,650, though Chasten says they got their one-bedroom for closer to $3,000 by locking in a long lease that gave them two months rent-free.

“We’re doing fine for ourselves, and [yet] the city is almost unaffordable,” he adds, while driving their Subaru Outback up I-395. “Which tells you how extremely unaffordable it is for many people.” (The transportation secretary’s salary is $221,400.)

The couple sold their home in South Bend earlier this year, knowing they couldn’t keep up the old Victorian from afar. But they didn’t leave the Midwest behind entirely, purchasing a home on Lake Michigan, in Traverse City, Mich., where Chasten grew up and where his parents still live. He likes to escape there, when he can, to hang drywall with his dad and surround himself with old friends — “people who remind me of, like, me.”

They could have waited on buying the house until after Pete left Washington if they wanted to have more room while living in the DC area. The Buttigieges could have paid off the student loans before buying a vacation home, too. Instead, they chose to spend their money on other priorities and want to leave taxpayers holding the bag.

Joe Biden likes to pretend he cares about the working class. His team seems much more interested in caring about themselves and their wealthy donor cronies, as well as the academic institutions that would benefit the most by forcing taxpayers to eat Chasten’s loans, along with everyone else. That’s the “privilege” that needs checking the most.