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On Wednesday, President Biden announced that taxpayers will be forced to pay for certain borrowers to receive up to $20,000 in loan "forgiveness". This is wrong, unfair, and irresponsible. Borrowers have no clear guidance and taxpayers are forced to pay for bills they do not owe. 87 percent of hardworking Americans who do not have student debt are being forced to pay the bills for loans they never took out, and half of those who will have their loans paid went to graduate school. On average, those receiving relief will go on to make over a million dollars more than the Americans who never attended college and are forced to foot the bill for someone else’s degree.
August marks the 20th month of no loan repayments since President Biden took office. This means that borrowers did not put a single penny towards paying down their student loans. The loans, however, haven’t disappeared. Taxpayers are on the hook for the $120 billion that has not been paid since Biden took office. This is entirely unsustainable, and if the can is kicked further down the road, both student borrowers and loan servicers will face serious problems.
Of course, we cannot forget about how the Department of Education radically underestimated the true cost of the federal student loan program. Although the federal government originally expected to generate revenue off student loans, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found that the Education Department’s budget erred by $311 billion. Any way you look at it, the claim that the federal government ‘profits’ off student loan borrowers is FALSE. Taxpayers have lost hundreds of billions of dollars on this program.
Years of Democrat policies that created and expanded the federal student loan program have cost taxpayers over $200 billion in the last two decades alone. President Biden has decided that the solution to these failures is another $500 billion transfer of wealth from working class Americans to privileged college graduates. This is a slap in the face to those who never went to college, as well as borrowers who upheld their responsibility to taxpayers and paid back their loans. It’s also a signal to every freshman stepping foot on a college campus to borrow as much as they can because taxpayers will be picking up the tab. Yesterday, I spoke to Larry Kudlow on Fox Business about this exact issue. I believe you will find this segment informative.
Even prominent voices in the Democrat Party are coming out and saying that this student loan forgiveness scam is merely an attempt to buy votes and that its effects will stoke the fires of inflation that are already engulfing the country. The simple truth is that dumping fuel on an inflationary fire is the last thing the economy needs. Remember, inflation is already sitting at a 40-year high. Imagine how much worse it could become in the months ahead. Here’s the kicker: In a press conference last year, even Speaker Pelosi asserted that President Biden does not have the power for massive debt forgiveness.
There is a better way, and one that is rooted in common sense! I introduced the Responsible Education Assistance through Loan (REAL) Reforms Act alongside Representatives Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Jim Banks (R-IN) that would fix the failures of the federal student loan program for the borrowers of today and those tomorrow. Unlike this mass student loan forgiveness scam, these reforms provide targeted relief to borrowers who need it the most and recognize that not every career path requires a baccalaureate degree. We have relied far too long on the status quo when it comes to higher education and Americans deserve far better than what the President is offering.
Here's the bottom line: Student loan “forgiveness” IS NOT free — it’s a transfer of wealth from the poor to the upper class. No matter which way you slice it, this mass transfer of wealth is unfair, costly, and will only make the serious problems plaguing our colleges and universities even worse.
Republicans on the Education and Labor Committee have been working diligently to inform the American people about how bad of a deal this loan forgiveness scam is for the entire country. In fact, we have created an up-to-date webpage that details fact sheets, expert opinions, and the latest news that you need to know about. Accountability is non-negotiable – it is an imperative that we will continue to uphold without delay.
Quote of The Week
“The free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism.”
-Charles Krauthammer
Have a blessed weekend,
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