Press Releases

WASHINGTON – Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) spoke on the House Floor today in support of H.J. Res. 45, a Congressional Review Act resolution that will bar President Biden and the Department of Education from moving forward with their student loan cancellation scheme and prevent any further extension of the student loan repayment pause.  

Chairwoman Foxx’s remarks (as prepared for delivery): 

“For Democrats, there is a specter looming over this debate – an incontrovertible truth that disproves all their supposed principles and contradicts all their virtue signaling. 

“Student loan cancellation is regressive. 

“Let me repeat that for the Progressive Caucus. 

“Student loan cancellation is regressive.

“Two-thirds of this debt transfer plan would go to the top half of earners. It takes from those in the lower half and gives to the upper half. It redistributes wealth, but from the bottom of our socioeconomic ladder to the top.

“For example, the repayment pause has provided $65,000 in de facto loan cancellation for the average lawyer. This is a professional class bailout. More specifically, it is a professional class, graduate-degree holder bailout. Of the loans that will be disbursed in 2024, 70 percent will be borrowed for graduate school; nearly 40 percent of those people will go on to make over $100,000 annually in their careers. Those are the data absent partisan spin provided directly from the Department of Education.

“The spin comes from the Left when they use words like ‘forgiveness.’ There is no such thing as ‘forgiveness.’ The Biden administration is simply transferring the debt from borrowers who willingly took out student loans to hardworking taxpayers who did not. The 87 percent of Americans who hold no federal student debt are paying for the 13 percent who do.

“On top of that, the bailout is inflationary, which is – always and everywhere – a regressive working-class tax. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, inflation could rise by as much as 27 basis points if mass student debt cancellation is implemented. Enacting mass student loan cancellation could also lead to an additional two rate hikes by the federal reserve.

“Billionaires don’t feel the effect of inflation. They don’t notice when eggs cost $5.99 a dozen. They don’t need to take out a mortgage to pay for their house. But working Americans do. 

“Inflation already has a vice grip on blue-collar America. In fact, The Hill reported yesterday that, ‘A record share of Americans in a new survey from the Federal Reserve Board say they’re worse off financially than they were a year earlier.’ That’s troubling and alone should be enough evidence to pass H.J. Res. 45 and nullify the Biden administration’s deficit-increasing, inflationary plan. But, in typical limousine liberal fashion, Democrats want future taxpayers and hard-working Americans to foot the bill. America shouldn’t buy it. 

“America also shouldn’t buy accusations from the Left that H.J. Res. 45 will charge borrowers backpay on interest payments. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Nowhere in this resolution does it mandate backpay. It is prospective, not retrospective. If anything, it will be Secretary Cardona’s decision to enact backpay.

“We know who will pay for the loans if the administration’s plan is allowed to go forward. Those who will pay are those without degrees and those who paid off their debt. Those who can’t afford to put gas in their cars or food on the table. 

“The rest is political noise. I urge Congress to cut through that noise and stop this administration from enacting the biggest transfer of wealth from blue-collar workers to white-collar professionals in our nation’s history.”