Nomination of Sylvia Mathews Burwell to be Secretary of Health and Human Services -- Continued
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first let me salute my colleague from Connecticut for bringing us all together to talk about this important issue, the good words of my colleague from Oregon--always on the money, always understanding what average folks need and have to go through--and, as well, our sponsors of this legislation. I salute Senators WARREN and FRANKEN, who are our two lead sponsors.
The bottom line is very simple. It is amazing to think that there are 40 million Americans and their families--at a time when interest rates are at about a record low--who are paying 7 to 14 percent on their student loans.
It is amazing to think that the average student graduates with over $30,000 of loans on his or her back. It is amazing to think that so many of our young people are living at home because they cannot afford not to because of student loans. Thirty-six percent of all individuals between 18 and 31 live with their parents--the highest percentage in 4 decades.
Why should people be paying more? And even more outrageous, guess who is making the profit much of the time? Sometimes it is the private banks. That is bad enough, but sometimes it is the Federal Government. For the Federal Government to charge people nearly double the going rate for their student loans is so unfair.
So we Democrats are hoping to give people a fair shot, a fair shot at being able to repay the cost of college at a reasonable interest rate. That is all we want. We are dedicated to helping the middle class, to helping working people, to helping people who do not have so much money get a fair shot at living decently well, the way they always have in America but in a way that is beginning to decline.
Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we would beg of them not to stand in the way but to join us. How do they defend charging those who have graduated from college 7, 10, even 14 percent for their student loans?
Now, we just got a CBO score. Our bill, which is paid for by simply the Buffett rule, which says that someone making over $1 million should pay the same rate as their secretary, as an average person.
Well, that is how we pay for it. Again, I cannot believe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would disagree with that. Anyway, we have a $21 billion net positive on our bill. So for anyone who is worried that we do not pay for the bill, we actually pay for the bill and return some money to the Treasury. So a fair shot is what is needed here, a fair shot for everyone to afford college.
Last year we lowered the interest rate for people already in college. But what about the 40 million who are out of college and are saddled with high interest rates, people who got out of college before 2010? Let's not forget the effect this has on the rest of the economy and new homes. Young people are not buying homes at the rate they used to--first time home buyers. Why? Well, one of the reasons--we cannot quantify how much yet, but we will be doing that--is that they are saddled with so much student debt at high interest rates.
So it affects our entire economy because construction jobs are not up to what they should be. A large part of that is because people are not buying homes the way they used to. So the bottom line is, it is very hard to resist the logic of the proposal that Senators WARREN and FRANKEN have put together.
Here are some numbers from my State. Fifty-four percent of Long Islanders between the ages of 25 and 29 live at home with their parents or relatives--more than one in two. Amazing. That is the American dream, to be able to get out of college and go live on your own, find a job, maybe find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. That is the American dream. It is a lot harder to do that when you are living at home, as much as we all love our parents. But because of student debt, because of high interest rates on student debt, people are forced to do that.
So, again, I thank all of my colleagues who have joined in our fair shot effort--our fair shot effort on minimum wage, our fair shot effort on pay equity, and our fair shot effort on college affordability. We will continue to fight as hard as we can to see that the average middle-class family is finally given a fair shot. We hope and we pray our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not stand in the way.
I know my colleagues from Connecticut and from Minnesota, who has been a great leader on this--and very few in America, let alone in this Senate, have such an understanding of the needs of average families and the middle class than the Senator from Minnesota. So I am happy to yield the floor so she may say a few--what I am sure will be very prescient--words.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source