Student and Family Tax Simplification Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. DOGGETT. Today's bill is another element of a Republican agenda that has consistently weakened our Federal commitment to educational opportunity.
I agree with the American Council on Education which said:
``The Federal Tax Code is no substitute for the Pell grant, Federal Work-Study, and other Federal student aid programs.''
Republicans have voted again and again in this Congress to cut these investments in our future. House Republicans approved a budget that would eliminate $90 billion of Pell grants, would deny 125,000 students Federal Work-Study assistance, and would have reduced funding for Hispanic-serving universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Now the Republicans come to the floor and are really boasting of the fact that this particular version of the bill does not cut Federal tax incentives for education as much as they wanted to.
As originally introduced by my colleague from Tennessee, this bill would have denied 5 million Americans every year an opportunity to use education tax incentives that exist under current law. They would have slashed assistance under the act by $5 billion a year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. And so they went back and tinkered with it a little bit, and they are here today to brag that they have a D-minus bill and that is better than the failing bill that they offered initially.
I understand that after years of opposing this particular incentive, they might want to change course. They all voted against the improvements, the changes that I authored in 2009 for the American Opportunity Tax Credit. They have consistently opposed the concept of refundability, that is, assisting those students who might not have a tax liability as big as the amount of the credit. And it is progress that they have come around to supporting the credit at all and the concept of helping those at the bottom of the ladder.
But while they have reduced the depths of the serious cuts that they proposed only a few months ago to these tax incentives, they have not stopped the bleeding. They deny assistance to many students across America who are assisted by our current law. That is why, as my colleague Mr. Levin pointed out, a group of educational institutions, whether it is Hispanic colleges or Christian colleges or land grant colleges, they all oppose this bill. They have said, and again I quote:
``The bill would negatively impact many low- and middle-income students and families who benefit under current law.''
That is what the educational experts say. And that is because the bill eliminates a guarantee under existing law called the Lifetime Learning Credit. It is eliminated entirely for so many students, and it is important to understand who those students are because I have seen and talked with them at places like San Antonio College, ACC, and St. Philip's College.
What kind of person are we talking about? Someone who is a single mother, who has a child to take care of, and continues to work trying to get her associate's degree first, to move out of a low-wage job into a better job, and then go on to UT or somewhere else, but she can't get it all done in 4 years; a mid-level worker who wants to shift industries and needs to upgrade his or her skills for a job in the new economy. They have to work and go to school at night. They can't get it all done in 4 years. A recent college graduate who says, you know, in order to get the job I am best qualified for, I am going to have to have a master's degree. But they are denied assistance and the opportunity to climb up the economic ladder of success, not by the existing law, but by the changes that the Republicans proposed today.
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Mr. DOGGETT. All these students lose out. The impact is serious. According to the Department of Education, about half of all students pursuing a higher education attend part time, which inevitably extends the time it takes for them to complete the degree.
Eliminating a tax incentive for higher education that takes more than 4 years away will deal a blow to nearly 2 million students across America who claimed the Lifetime Learning Credit, or they did in 2013. Of these, about a million earn less than $40,000 a year. That is who is being cut by this.
I have legislation that over 100 of our colleagues have joined to do all the streamlining they talk about, but to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent and to ensure that we don't cut out benefits to students who are counting on these benefits. We need to reject this bill.
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