[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 118 (Monday, July 15, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H5778-H5779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PASS OUR 2020 NDAA BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, the House of Representatives 
passed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, a measure which 
sets policy for the folks who wear the uniform of this country.
  The U.S. Congress has actually passed a defense authorization act 
every year for the last 57 years. This year, if we all continue to work 
together, we can make it 58 years running.
  Again, this is a measure which sets everything from military pay--a 
3.1 percent pay raise for the military, the largest pay increase in the 
last 10 years--to setting the ground rules for military acquisition, 
whether it is recapitalizing our Navy or buying the new F-35 planes for 
the Air Force. It is a large, sprawling bill which covers, again, all 
aspects of U.S. defense policy for the upcoming year.
  Included in this measure was an amendment that I offered for which, 
on Friday evening, the Iraq and Afghan Veterans of America issued a 
strong statement of support in the wake of passage of the bill.
  What my amendment did is it offset a policy decision that was made in 
July of 2018 by the Trump administration which cut off the ability of 
long-serving members of the military to transfer their GI Bill 
educational benefits to a spouse or dependent. Again, the IAVA, which 
TIME Magazine has described as the most important organization 
representing a new generation of veterans--what my amendment did was it 
eliminated what IAVA described as a shortsighted policy change 
announced by the Department of Defense in July 2015, which would have 
limited transferability to servicemembers with less than 16 years of 
Active-Duty service and excluded servicemembers who had served for 
nearly the entirety of the war on terror.
  In 2008, we changed the GI bill, recognizing, again, that we have an 
all-volunteer force and that the GI Bill, which goes back to Franklin 
Roosevelt signing it 75 years ago, had deteriorated over time. We 
restored the value of the educational benefit, and we created, for the 
first time, the ability of a servicemember to transfer, on a one-time 
basis only, the educational benefit to a spouse or child.
  Again, what this did was it took the burden of those who were serving 
particularly long periods of time in our military at great economic 
sacrifices the ability to at least take one family member's educational 
benefits for higher education.

[[Page H5779]]

  Again, my amendment, which was part of the bill that passed last 
Friday night, would restore the full intent of the Congress in 2008 and 
reverse the Trump administration's decision to cut off that 
transferability, which was issued last July.
  Again, we still have work to do. We have a conference to build with 
the Senate, and we, obviously, have to get it to the President for 
signature. We have done it for 57 straight years, and we should make it 
58 this year by passing the 2020 NDAA bill.


                Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, there are also things happening over at 
the U.S. Department of Education regarding higher education which are 
of great concern.
  On Thursday, the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit in 
the District Court of Washington, D.C., basically asking the court to 
rule that the Department's foot-dragging in terms of discharging 
student loan debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program 
has got to come to an end.
  In 2007, we passed the College Class Reduction Act which set up a 
mechanism for those who serve in critical public service occupations, 
such as teaching, nurses, doctors, police, prosecutors, social workers, 
veterinarians, and people who work in nonprofit organizations. If they 
make their student loan payments consistently over a 10-year period, 
under the College Class Reduction Act, they could apply for a discharge 
of the balance of their student loan, recognizing that these are people 
who are going into occupations for which the payment of student loan 
debt can be too onerous.

                              {time}  1215

  So, 2007 was the year that this program was supposed to kick into 
effect. As the Government Accountability Office determined, since that 
period--and these are our figures from 2019--7,555 borrowers have 
submitted applications to have their loans discharged. Only 864 have 
been approved, and only 516 borrowers, less than 1 percent, have had 
their loans forgiven.
  Again, the loan servicers working for the Department of Education, as 
determined by GAO, are giving bad information and are not crediting the 
monthly loan payments that teachers and nurses and others have been 
faithfully making, relying on this program. They built their employment 
history around the opportunity, knowing that that student loan debt 
could be discharged.
  Again, what we are seeing are shocking figures from the Department of 
Education that have not followed through and implemented this law.
  Not a great surprise to those of us on the Committee on Education and 
Labor because the Trump administration, for the last 3 years, has 
submitted budgets that would eliminate the Public Service Loan 
Forgiveness Program.
  We have to change this administration's policies toward higher 
education. We did it on Friday, and we have to do it with public 
service loan forgiveness to reward the good guys, the people who are 
out there doing critical work for our Nation.

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