[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 193 (Tuesday, December 13, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H9692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             STUDENT LOANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, President Biden is turning the Federal Student 
Loan Program into a titanic heading straight for an iceberg.
  The Biden administration's changes to these programs will make a bad 
system worse.
  For starters, President Biden's sixth extension of the student loan 
repayment pause brings the total cost of this unjustifiable policy to 
$195 billion. This is foolish by every measure.
  Most college-educated workers were not the ones to lose their jobs 
during the pandemic and were able to adjust to flexible work 
arrangements, so why are they getting special treatment from the Biden 
administration?
  Would it be fair to force student loan borrowers to pay off the car 
and mortgage loans of the millions of blue-collar Americans who lost 
their jobs because of forced economic shutdowns? The answer is a 
resounding no.
  To add insult to injury, President Biden is falsely promising a $400 
billion bailout knowing full well this illegal, disgraceful action will 
likely get struck down in court.
  Using the livelihoods of 40 million borrowers to score political 
points at the expense of hardworking taxpayers and the next generation 
of students is politics at its worst.
  President Biden's use of the executive pen to stab taxpayers in the 
back doesn't end there.
  Since taking office, President Biden has been canceling massive 
amounts of loans under the guise of ``fixing'' broken programs. The 
very programs Democrats themselves created, including nearly $50 
billion through the administration's illegal waivers.
  This is a blatant disregard for the rule of law. Our student loan 
system already operates in the red, and these changes will ensure it 
costs taxpayers even more.
  Yet, it is only the tip of the iceberg.
  Indeed, the Biden administration's new income-driven repayment plan, 
IDR, will turn Federal student loans into untargeted grants costing 
taxpayers a fortune in the process.
  Because President Biden couldn't get his radical agenda through 
Congress, he is dismantling the Federal student loan program and 
pushing Democrats' free college plan by executive fiat.
  Between slashing payments for high-income graduate students to 
expanding the number of individuals who will receive forgiveness, 
economists and policy experts agree that the average student loan 
borrower will pay roughly half of what he or she owes if this plan is 
enacted.
  This is not what taxpayers signed up for when the program was 
created, and it is certainly not the plan Congress wrote and passed.
  These changes will have long-term consequences because they create 
perverse incentives for over-borrowing. Why would students make smart 
financial decisions when they know Uncle Joe or another administration 
will pay off their loans?
  Instead of solving the problem for all borrowers, President Biden is 
sticking future borrowers in a ship with cracks in the hull.
  These foolhardy changes will accelerate tuition, inflation. With 
taxpayer-subsidized tuition, colleges and universities will have no 
incentives to keep costs down. It will also turn more postsecondary 
institutions into degree mills.
  The only thing loan forgiveness does is encourage colleges and 
universities to offer even more degree programs they know do not pay 
off once students enter the workforce.
  Our country needs reforms that can right the ship, not sink it even 
deeper into a fiscal abyss. Republicans are proposing commonsense 
solutions that will make the Federal student loan program seaworthy.
  The REAL Reforms Act provides targeted relief for those that need it 
most instead of stealing from taxpayers to provide ineffective and 
expensive bailouts.
  This legislation also provides practical solutions for the underlying 
problems plaguing higher education.
  These are the kinds of policies we need, policies that will make our 
Federal student loan program capable of serving borrowers without 
throwing taxpayers overboard.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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