[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 64 (Thursday, April 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4398-H4399]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             STUDENT LOANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, Republicans have taken aim at middle-
class families with proposals to cut student loans. They want to cut 
student loan programs to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.
  Student loans in this country today have made it possible for 4.5 
million middle-class students to go to college. These Republican cuts 
will mean fewer students going to college and for those students that 
do go to college that are now receiving student loans, it will mean 
higher costs to them.
  In my State of Ohio, the average debt per student on student loans 
will increase nearly $3,100.
  Mr. Speaker, I wear a tie today from Lorraine County Community 
College in northeast Ohio. In the county which I live, in Lorraine 
County, 67 percent of 
[[Page H4399]] all Lorraine County Community College students are on 
some type of financial aid, nearly 5,000 students per quarter.
  At a school like Lorraine County Community College, which is an 
absolute jewel for Lorraine County in terms of job training and people 
going back to school and getting more education and people going 
straight from high school onto LC to go to college, Lorraine County 
Community College has literally thousands of part-time students, 
hundreds and hundreds of single parents who are students, hundreds of 
people from a very diverse cross section of the community.
  What these cuts to middle-class students mean, what these budget cuts 
mean on student loans is that many of these students that are now at 
Lorraine County Community College will be saddled with heavier and 
heavier debts as they are struggling to work part-time and go to school 
part-time and raise their children and some of them simply will give 
up.
                              {time}  1900

  These cuts to middle-class students are part of the Republican 
Contract on America.
  Let me briefly discuss the winners and the losers in the Republican 
Contract on America. The winners are people like Rupert Murdoch. Rupert 
Murdoch got a $63 million tax break, Australian-born, American-
naturalized-citizen Rupert Murdoch. Another winner is American 
billionaires who are the recipients of $3.6 billion, thanks to the 
Republican Contract on America, American billionaires who renounced 
their American citizenship and got this tax break. Other winners are 
people making $200,000 a year.
  The Republicans have called middle class not what people in my 
district would term middle class. Those are other winners who get a 
major tax break under the Contract With America.
  Another major winner is America''s largest corporations, which in the 
mid-1980's had enjoyed so many tax loopholes that many of them paid no 
Federal taxes. Ronald Reagan and the then Democratic Congress put on 
them an alternative minimum tax so those corporations at least paid 
some tax. That tax loophole has been recreated under the Republican 
Contract for America.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BROWN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I was just hoping that in your list of winners you 
would include 87.5 percent of the American people who will benefit from 
this $500 per child tax credit. It is a pretty significant group in the 
population of the country that will benefit from the Contract With 
America, and I would hope my friend from Ohio would mention this large 
group of our citizens.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Let me answer that.
  The fact is that, in spite of all the Republican charts, they have 
called people making $200,000 a year middle class. The tax cuts are 
mostly for them when you add in that one particular tax item plus the 
money for Rupert Murdoch plus the $3.6 billion that people renounced 
their citizenship plus the alternative minimum tax repeal.
  Now, I want to make sure I have this right with the Rupert Murdoch 
situation. You have got an Australian billionaire who has come to the 
United States, gotten American citizenship so that he could buy a 
television network and so that he could buy a major book publishing 
house and cut book deals with American politicians. Then you have 
American billionaires who have renounced their citizenship so they can 
get $3.6 billion in tax breaks.
  Perhaps if Rupert Murdoch is really, really smart, after he has 
become an American citizen and got this $65 million, he will be able to 
renounce his citizenship and get part of the $3.6 billion.
  The fact is, this is ludicrous. Perhaps Mr. Murdoch and perhaps some 
of those American billionaires that have partaken of the $3.6 billion 
by renouncing their citizenship will come to Lorain, to my hometown 
with me, and explain to students at Lorain Community College why in 
fact their student loans are being cut, will explain to students at 
Tennyson Elementary in Sheffield Lake, OH, why school lunches are being 
cut, will explain in Elyria, OH, to young people who have had summer 
jobs in the past why there are no more summer jobs programs because of 
these Republican cuts.
  It simply does not make sense. It is not fair. It is not right.
  I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the House reconsider some of these measures 
that the Republican Contract With American is all about.


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