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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last few years, President Biden and Washington Democrats have unveiled a large range of socialist- inspired policies. The ill-fated ``Build Back Broke'' plan, for example, would have driven up daycare costs for countless working families. Thankfully, that bill couldn't get enough votes to pass.

Then there was electric vehicles socialism, which actually did become law as part of Democrats' misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which, by the way, did not reduce inflation. So thanks to them, today families earning up to $300,000 a year can receive a taxpayer handout to buy an electric vehicle made with batteries from China. It seems like a bad idea to me.

And last fall, President Biden rolled out his plan for student loan socialism. Over the last few years, liberal activists have called on Democrats to cancel student debt. But those calls were largely ignored until President Biden came along and decided to try it on his own. Not by coming to Congress and not by passing legislation, but with the stroke of a pen.

Last August, he announced he would cancel student loans for millions of borrowers. Well, ask any family with a mortgage, a car payment, a credit card debt, they all understand there is no such thing as canceling debt. Every dollar that was borrowed will eventually have to be repaid by someone. It is just a matter of who that someone is. Well, you can look around at the person you are sitting next to. You will be the ones to pay it back, the taxpayer.

Traditionally, the responsibility falls to the borrower--the person who agreed to repay the debt, the person who willingly took out tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars in student loans.

The President decided to throw tradition and personal responsibility out the window in favor of a socialist approach where everyone chips in whether they want to or not. In other words, the American taxpayer. He said he would erase--erase--up to $20,000 in student loans for tens of millions of borrowers; thereby sticking taxpayers with the tab.

Well, to state the obvious, the vast majority of Americans do not benefit here, because 87 percent of Americans have no student debt.

Some people didn't go to college. Maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they couldn't afford it. Many worked while pursuing a degree. Many paid off their loans after graduating, just as they agreed to do.

Still, President Biden expects every person without college debt to shoulder the cost for someone else. In total, his plan would cost taxpayers more than $400 billion, even though only 13 percent of Americans would reap the benefits.

A college degree is not a shared experience. It is not like roads, hospitals, or police departments, which benefit everyone. Individuals in debt made the decision to borrow the money, and they alone will reap the benefit of that degree, whether it is in the form of increased compensation or other opportunities. It is fundamentally unfair to expect taxpayers with zero student debt to cover the cost of someone else's degree.

To state the obvious, the President does not have the authority to stick the taxpayers with this debt. And I hope the Supreme Court rules on that in the near future.

In the meantime, this is irresponsible overreach at its finest. And I am glad the Senate will have an opportunity to vote to overturn this reckless rule.

Senators Cassidy, Ernst, and I introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn President Biden's student loan socialism. Our resolution would prevent the President from transferring the burden of student loans from willing borrowers to unwitting Americans. It would also end the pause on student loan payments--another renegade act by President Biden for which he has zero authority.

This is costing Americans $5 billion a month. This first went into effect in March of 2020 as the pandemic took hold. Now, more than 3 years later, it is time for borrowers to resume payment. Even President Biden has finally accepted how disruptive this never-ending pause is for our country.

He agreed to reinstate student loan payment requirements through the bipartisan debt ceiling deal that will soon be voted on by the House.

President Biden's student loan socialism is unfair, and it is irresponsible. And I hope it will soon be overturned by the Senate through this resolution.

I want to say, again, how much I appreciate Senator Cassidy's leadership on this. And I encourage all our colleagues to support it.

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