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

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 45.

Forty-three million Americans are eligible for President Biden's student loan relief. That is an average of almost 100,000 people in each of our districts.

Nearly 26 million borrowers in congressional districts all over the country have already applied for relief, including 16 million who have already been approved prior to litigation stopping the process. H.J. Res. 45 seeks to deny these borrowers the relief they were promised.

To be clear, the people who would be impacted the most are not the wealthy and well-connected. Ninety percent of the relief would go to borrowers earning less than $75,000 a year. You are not even eligible if you are making over $125,000 a year. That is in stark contrast, of course, to the Trump tax scam, where 80 percent of the benefits went to the top 1 percent and corporations.

Moreover, my Republican colleagues refuse to acknowledge the serious questions that have been raised about how the resolution would actually be implemented because, under the Congressional Review Act resolution, you don't get to pick and choose which parts of a rule you are overturning. You have to overturn the whole rule, including the pause in student loan payments and the deferral of interest.

How do you unpause a payment that you were supposed to make many months ago? What is going to happen to all those interest payments that now have to be added back to the loans? That is about $233 per month in interest and principal.

What happens to the credits that participants in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program were promised during those months? Are these firefighters, teachers, police officers, and other public servants who may have had their loans forgiven now on the hook for four additional payments?

The reality is that H.J. Res. 45 would trigger a wave of delinquencies and defaults for our most vulnerable borrowers. Intentionally or not, this resolution would create chaos for borrowers and their families, as well as loan servicers.

The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that this chaos would be triggered by the retroactive application of this rule.

Mr. Speaker, anyone in the country who wants to take advantage of the benefits of a college education should be able to do so, not just the wealthy few. That is the way it used to be just several decades ago. Pell grants covered 80 percent of the cost of attending a State college. Now, it is less than 30 percent. When adjusted for inflation, States are paying less for State colleges than they used to.

Mr. Speaker, this proposal does nothing to help students pay for their college education, so I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose the resolution.

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Virginia that over 90,000 borrowers in his district will be denied relief if this resolution is enacted.

House of Representatives.

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Michigan that over 90,000 borrowers in his district will be denied relief if this resolution is enacted.

Bonamici).

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Georgia that over 110,000 borrowers from his district would be denied relief if this resolution is enacted.

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Florida that almost 120,000 borrowers from his district will be denied relief if this resolution is enacted.

Adams), the ranking member of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Illinois that over 75,000 borrowers from her district will be denied debt relief if this resolution is enacted.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. ROBERT GARCIA of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to House Republicans' efforts to eliminate critical student loan relief.

Now, as an educator, it is shameful to me that my colleagues could look at this crisis of student debt in our country and decide to intentionally make it worse for 40 million Americans.

These are the same people that voted for tax breaks for billionaires and large corporations, and now they are telling everyday people that we can't afford to help them, and it is appalling.

When I was in the classroom, I saw my students take out loans for basic needs like rent and putting food on the table. We tell kids to go get an education, to go to college, to work toward the American Dream, but that also means taking out, oftentimes, thousands of dollars of loans.

Student loan debt also disproportionately impacts people of color, low-income students, and millions of young people that may not have had access to financial training. Millionaires are not burdened with student debt; working-class people are.

So let's be clear: Republicans in the House are putting billionaires and large corporations over students.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Tennessee that 89,000 borrowers from his district will be denied relief if this resolution is enacted.

Jayapal), a member of the Education and Workforce Committee.

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague from Texas that over 88,000 borrowers from his district will be denied relief if this resolution is enacted.

Tlaib).

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Kamlager-Dove).

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Pressley).
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there are many challenges we have in higher education that demand our attention: the rising costs of higher education, the student debt crisis, the eroded value of the Pell grant, and mental health issues. The list goes on.

Instead of addressing these challenges, we are trying to force through a resolution that hurts tens of millions of student borrowers and their families, an average of almost 100,000 in each of our districts.

Many of my colleagues on the other side have justified this resolution by arguing that we can't afford it, but it is just a matter of priorities.

Congressional Republicans are willing to charge taxpayers more than twice as much for a tax package where 80 percent of the benefits were scheduled to go to the top 1 percent and corporations, but now they are unwilling to invest half that amount to help student borrowers pay for their education.

We should be passing proposals that meaningfully support borrowers and make college more affordable for current and future borrowers.

The bottom line is that it is our responsibility to strengthen the support for those seeking a college degree because those who want a college degree should be able to access that opportunity. That opportunity should not be reserved for just the wealthy few.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.J. Res. 45, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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