[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7817]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           STUDENT LOAN DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, all across America over the last 2 or 3 
weeks has been an exciting time for a lot of young Americans and 
families as graduating seniors in 4-year programs and 2-year programs 
are receiving their degrees and beginning, obviously, a new, exciting 
stage in their life.
  Unfortunately, there is still, though, a cloud over a lot of those 
folks in terms of what they face in the near future and the long-term 
future and many others who graduated in recent years, which is the high 
cost of student loan debt. The Federal Reserve has calculated that over 
$1 trillion of overhang exists in the U.S. economy because of student 
loan debt: an amount greater than credit card debt, an amount greater 
than auto debt, and at rates that far exceed any of those forms of 
consumer debt, including mortgages for homes.
  The Federal Government, in the meantime, is out selling bonds as a 
borrower to people who buy Treasury bonds, 10-year notes. This 
morning's rate, which I checked before coming down here, the rate that 
the Federal Government is going to pay as borrower, is 2.3 percent. 
Well, as many, I think, listening here, Mr. Speaker, know, the fact is 
that student loans carry much higher rates of interest, particularly 
legacy debt that goes back 5, 6 years ago when, again, the rates for 
Stafford student loans, which are the publicly financed loans through 
the Federal Government, and certainly private loans that banks give to 
students that are on an unsecured rate can sometimes exceed 8, 9, 10 
percent.
  So tomorrow, I and many others are going to be introducing 
legislation called the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, 
which will allow folks who carry the student loan debt not to get their 
debt forgiven, but to allow them to actually refinance down to 3.76 
percent, which was the interest rate last year that the Federal 
Government offered for Stafford student loans.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that that will put about 
$50 billion into the pockets of young people all across the country 
who, because of student loan debt, are being inhibited in terms of 
getting married, starting a family, starting a business, and getting 
out of their parents' house. There is just all kinds of, I think, 
inhibitors that student loan debt creates for young people, 
millennials, all across the country.
  Again, I want to emphasize the bill that I will be introducing 
tomorrow with 61 cosponsors is not debt forgiveness. It just simply 
does what any middle class family does in a low-interest rate 
environment, whether it is with a home mortgage or credit cards, to 
just simply get their rates down to a proportionate level with, again, 
the rest of consumer debt that is out there in the economy.
  Simultaneously tomorrow, Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts 
will be introducing exactly the same bill, so we will have bills in the 
House and in the Senate. Last year we had 182 cosponsors on a similar 
piece of legislation. Unfortunately, the Speaker never allowed the bill 
to be brought to the floor for debate. But it is a new Congress; it is 
the 115th Congress that was sworn in last January.
  This problem, I will just submit, Mr. Speaker, exists in Republican 
districts and Democratic districts, rural districts, suburban 
districts, urban districts. This is an opportunity to lift a debt 
burden from, again, the very folks that we really want to assist and 
help as they begin a new phase, a new chapter, in their life, and they 
should not have the albatross of high student loan rates hung around 
their neck. Hopefully, this will be the year that we will move forward 
on this measure, which is fully paid for--it does not add to the 
Federal debt--and just, again, allows young people and families the 
opportunity to do what they do with all other forms of consumer debt.
  So it is the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. 
Hopefully, anyone listening to this will call their Members to tell 
them to get on this bill. And I would urge, Mr. Speaker, all of us on 
both sides of the aisle to deal with an issue that really is a bread-
and-butter, kitchen-table issue all across America, that, again, at 
this special time when students are graduating, we can do a really 
positive thing to help students and families all across America.

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