Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an amendment I filed to the reconciliation bill, amendment No. 2887, to strengthen Pell grants.

This amendment provides middle-class families with the kind of stable funding source that they can rely on when it comes to paying for college. Pell grants have historically been the key investment in helping low-income students pay for college. Most of my colleagues would agree that a good education is one of the surest paths to the middle class.

In 1980, the maximum Federal Pell grant covered about 77 percent of in-state, 4-year college tuition. Now Pell grants account for only one-third of those costs. Rising college costs prevent many low-income students, no matter how hard they work, from being able to go to college and thus from reaching the middle class.

If the Senate can accomplish one thing that invests in our Nation's future, it should be to enact policies that help to stabilize and expand the middle class. We all know there is a growing income disparity in our country that is whittling down our middle class and making it harder and harder for people to get ahead in the first place. Key to the path forward for many is college affordability. Pell grants are a critical part of college affordability.

Almost half of all college students in the United States receive Pell grants to help fund their education, including 23,000 students in my home State of Hawaii. Unfortunately, Pell grants--the largest Federal student aid program--which are primarily funded by discretionary, not mandatory, funding appropriations, do not provide the kind of stable funding source that families can rely upon. Each year Congress in its discretion determines how much funding goes to Pell grants. This should change. Federal financial aid should be a resource that students and their families can count on, that they can plan around.

To that end, the amendment I filed would do two things. First, it would convert the Pell Grant Program from the discretionary side of the budget to the mandatory side of the budget for 5 years. That way, eligible families won't have to worry each year about congressional appropriations, at least for 5 years, and they can plan their financing for an entire 4-year degree. Second, my amendment would index Pell grants annually for inflation. That means that as college costs rise, so, too, will they allow Federal aid to low-income students.

Students and their families should have confidence that if they commit to earning an education, Federal support will be there for their hard work. My amendment would give them that stability.

This amendment is paid for by closing tax loopholes for corporate executives and hedge fund managers and by instituting the Buffett rule, to ensure that Americans who earn over $1 million per year pay their fair share of taxes--tax fairness from those who earn more in a year than many college graduates may earn in their lifetimes.

To give a hand-up to the next generation of strivers is more than reasonable to me. Access to educational opportunity is not a handout. Graduates will still have to work hard to get good jobs, start businesses, and succeed, and when they succeed, our country succeeds.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to stabilize and strengthen the middle class and to invest in our next generation of leaders.

The amendment to the underlying bill would improve it, but the underlying bill is deeply flawed. The underlying bill before us would take away health care access for millions of women, seniors, and low-income working people by gutting the Affordable Care Act, defunding Planned Parenthood, and undermining investment and prevention and research. The resultant harm to our people is a poison pill that we cannot impose on American families. This Republican bill, which does little for the middle class and working people, will be vetoed by the President. The Republicans know this, and yet they are bound and determined to pass this harmful legislation as soon and as fast as possible.

I ask my colleagues to stop, pause, and get our country back on track by supporting and strengthening the middle class, by giving a hand-up to the people who represent our country's future, and by not yanking the rug out from under the millions of Americans who rely on health care.

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