Future Forum

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. VEASEY. Congressman Swalwell, thank you very much. I really appreciate your leadership on Future Forum and bringing up important issues like student debt. It is a real issue that so many of our young people struggle with when they graduate from college.

   In one of the articles that I was reading about student debt, a national magazine put some Instagram photos up of young people and the problems and the issues that they have with student debt. Some of the kids put up some really creative things.

   One of the graduating students, on their graduating hat, instead of ``Game of Thrones,'' it said ``Game of Loans.'' Another sign that I saw at one of the college graduations said, ``I will soon be joining millions of other young people that are graduating from college, and I will be consumed with thousands of dollars in debt.''

   But while these Instagram photos are cute and funny and I am sure are a way for young people to take their minds off of what is going to be facing them in thousands of dollars of debt, we know that this is a very serious issue.

   Our young people that are graduating from college are putting off buying a house. They are putting off buying that new car. Those sorts of things play a role in how well our economy does.

   And I think, more importantly, you hear a lot of young people that are graduating from college saying that they are putting off starting a family.

   That is one of the most important things that we do as young people as we graduate from college and make our way into the world, is that we start that next generation.

   And in order for us to start that next generation with confidence, kids need to know that when they graduate from college, they are not going to be burdened with all of this debt.

   We know that college is becoming less and less affordable each day, and it negatively impacts the lives of thousands of Americans across our great Nation, including many of the constituents that I represent in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

   Right now we have about 40 million young people in this country that have over $1.3 trillion in debt.

   In the State of Texas, the average debt per student is over $25,000, with over 70 percent of bachelor's degree recipients graduating with a student loan. About 16 percent of students in Texas have defaulted on their loans. These numbers can easily create an economic crisis for an entire generation.

   While the cost of higher education continues to rise, grants are not going up on the same per-student basis. We have seen the Federal Pell Grant funding levels remain stagnant despite House Democrats urging Republicans to do something, to step in and help these kids, and let's increase Pell Grant funding levels. But we have seen absolutely no action from the Republicans on this.

   Mr. Speaker and Congressman Swalwell, I think it is important that we do work together on commonsense proposals that provide grants to the most needy and to make Federal loans affordable so that young people can obtain a degree, contribute to our economy, and keep our country going strong without the burden of insurmountable student debt.

   Mr. SWALWELL of California. Congressman Veasey, part of what the Future Forum has tried to express across the country to young people has been, first, our members, we understand you, we hear you, because we know the struggle you have gone through.

   Personally, I have over $100,000 today in student loan debt. Half of my college was paid through an athletic scholarship, and I still had that much student loan debt that I racked up because of tuition going up every single year.

   Could you tell us just a little bit about your personal story or those of any family members or friends and how you have personally seen this debt affecting people.

   Mr. VEASEY. Absolutely. When I graduated from college, paying back my student loans was very, very difficult. And I will tell you that one of the things that I lucked into when I was still in my twenties was that I became a congressional aide. I worked for a Member of Congress.

   And there was a student loan program for young people that worked on Capitol Hill for them to be able to have some of their student loan debt repaid. Had it not been for that, I don't know what I would have done because the student debt was eating into my discretionary income.

   Again, we want young people to contribute to our economy. We want young people to go and buy that car that they couldn't afford in college. We want young people to start a family, buy a home.

   I mean, the American Dream is being able to start a family and buy that home and be able to raise your kids in that home and be able to provide for your family.

   But, unfortunately, more and more of our young people are saying, ``You know what. I am going to put off getting married. I am going to put off buying that home. I am going to put off putting money into our local economy. I am going to not buy so much for Christmas for my siblings and my parents and other people. I can't afford to because I have thousands and thousands of dollars' worth of student debt.''

   We have to figure out some way to do something about this, Representative Swalwell, or we are going to have an entire generation of young people that just has absolutely nowhere to turn.

   Mr. SWALWELL of California. You know what was interesting? We have had these conversations with people.

   A story I will never forget: We were in the Boston area, and we went to Thermo Fisher. We had this town hall with about 200 young people at their workforce, talking to us about student loan debt. I was with Congressman Moulton.

   Once we started getting into the back-and-forth of the questions with the participants, a woman in the back who was around 55, 60 years old raised her hand and said kind of jokingly, ``You know, I know I am not supposed to be here. This is a millennial town hall.'' And we told her, ``No. No. It is a mindset. It is not an age.''

   But she said, ``I think you are missing the fact that student loan debt doesn't just affect millennials,'' and she told a story about her daughter who had gone to college, which is also a part of that American Dream where we want our young people to go to college, educate themselves.

   But she said that she has found that her daughter has come home from college, has over $30,000 in student loan debt and, because of that debt, is not able to even rent near where she works. So what her daughter has done is she has come back home. We are becoming the boomerang generation.

   So that reinforced for me that this issue affects the 40 million millennials that you talked about. But, actually, it is a family matter. It affects everyone in the household.

   Have you heard stories like that or seen examples of that?

   Mr. VEASEY. Yes. I have absolutely heard so many stories like that.

   And it is really interesting. I think, when we are all in our twenties, we never think that we are going to get older.

   I have been working in politics now since I have been in my twenties, starting off as a congressional aide and spending 8 years in Texas State Legislature and now as a Member of Congress.

   When you meet kids that are in their teens, kids that are in their twenties, they never ask you about Social Security. They don't ask you much about what is going on with the national defense. And, for years, I can tell you that young people in their teens and twenties never asked me a lot of questions, as an elected official, about many of the issues that affect our country.

   Most of the questions that I would get from individuals were usually from people that were baby boomers and older that were concerned about Social Security, concerned about the high cost of food or goods or whatever it may happen to be.

   But let me tell you something. For young people in this country, this issue is getting their attention, not being able to pay back their student debt
.
   And I can tell you that, when I am at townhall meetings, when I am out doing the different events throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, the one issue that young people come to me about--and I know that, if someone is in their twenties or early thirties and they are approaching me about an issue, it is probably going to be about student debt. It has really galvanized them like I have never seen before.

   Again, they are going to social media like some of the examples that I have talked with you about earlier. They are going to social media. They are going to Instagram and Facebook, talking about student debt, begging the Congress to do something about providing more grants.

   Again, we want our country to be well-educated. That is how we are going to be able to compete with the rest of the world.

   But guess what. More and more young people are hearing, you know, ``Why go to college? Why go to college and be burdened with student debt?''

   And guess what. If more and more young people hear that, it is going to make us less competitive in the world at a time where we need to be more competitive in all sectors, whether it is in technology, whether it is in manufacturing. We need an educated workforce.

   I can tell you that young people are being discouraged because of a lack of action specifically, really, by Republicans in Congress. So we have to keep raising this issue.

   Mr. SWALWELL of California. Again, I appreciate you being with us today, Congressman Veasey of Texas.

   You are right. It is about solutions and who is acting. I think we all would welcome the bipartisan approach to this. But right now the silence is deafening, and it is affecting a whole generation that is just stuck in financial quicksand.

   One of the solutions that the Future Forum has put out there is this idea: Hey, you can refinance an auto loan. You can refinance your home loan. Why shouldn't our students who are in this financial quicksand be able to refinance their student loans at the lowest available rate? We have got legislation on that, and I hope it becomes bipartisan legislation. But I agree with you on a call to action on this.

   Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Representative Swalwell. I appreciate that.

   Mr. SWALWELL of California. Well, the Future Forum is a group that has evolved since April, and we are quite interested in engaging with millennials.

   Again, I would invite people tonight to engage with us on #futureforum, and we will take questions.

   But this idea of reaching out to a generation that is not necessarily yet engaged in new, innovative ways is older than the Future Forum. It actually started about 10 years ago.

   And today we have a little bit of a surprise for our Future Forum followers. We are going to welcome some of the original members of the Future Forum who 10 years ago on this House floor redefined what it meant to reach out and talk to the next generation of leaders.

   So it is my honor, it is my privilege, to first welcome Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio. Tim said it best in 2005, 10 years ago, when he led the 30-Something Working Group and they took questions on this House floor, as we take them now from Twitter. Congressman Ryan took them via email.

   He said, ``Being the 30-Something Group, we are trying to take our communications to the next level, trying to reach out to the American people, because we have said for quite some time that if we are going to solve problems in this country, that we have to engage the best and brightest talent that is out in the country in order to do this.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source