Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Department of Education Relating to ``Waivers and Modifications of Federal Student Loans''

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Good of Virginia for introducing H.J. Res. 45, and I thank Chairwoman Foxx for her leadership in getting this important resolution to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, just a few statistics from my particular district in northeast Texas: Almost 70 percent of my district does not hold a college degree, and under this program, effectively what the President is asking for is, that those 70 percent should subsidize the college education of the rest of those individuals in my district.

The cost for my district is $1.55 billion. The estimated number of constituents ineligible for student debt relief in my district is 640,000 individuals out of 767,000 individuals in east Texas.

Nearly 30 years ago when I began my post-education studies, I had to support myself through college. My parents wanted to do that, but they couldn't do it because of their financial status at the time, so paying for college was a matter of personal responsibility for me.

Better stated, it was a matter of personal investment for my future. It was an investment that I chose to make. It was an investment that I knew I needed to make to fulfill God's call on my life.

To pay for my education, I took on a variety of jobs, including being a server at a restaurant, running a vending route, serving as a painter's helper, even roofing a roof in the middle of the hot Texas sun.

There was still a gap between what college was going to cost me and what I could earn on my own during those summer and weekend jobs that I had. Despite my hard work, a shortfall was still there, so I picked up college loans.

When I did so, I evaluated what I was going to have to repay in the future. I looked at the degree programs I was studying, I looked at the future repayment plans before me, and I knew that it was a matter of my personal responsibility to pay back that loan that was going to benefit me and benefit my family.

It was not a matter of me taking out those loans believing that others would, in fact, be on the hook to pay for them. As a father of four school-aged children, we are now going through that same process with my older two children to determine what we are going to do about their future. It is a decision we know we need to make and an obligation we know we need to keep on the back side of taking out any loans.

Unfortunately, that is a conversation a lot of families don't have in this world before they send their kids off to school, and we need to make sure that there is more information out there before they incur the debt that ultimately they are going to have to repay.

But to saddle that repayment on the backs of others who have not benefited from it is simply wrongheaded. Frankly, it is unconstitutional for the executive branch to take that action without going through the legislative branch, but that is precisely what the President is attempting to do.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in opposition to the student loan debt forgiveness program and in support of Mr. Good's joint resolution. I look forward to this being on the floor.

I look forward to Americans in this country understanding that when they take an obligation for a loan repayment, that they are going to repay it, not others, because once we assume the obligations of every other person in this country, the free market, capitalist society that drives our economy is gone. We do not need to see that.

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