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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about the Biden administration’s new student loan debt transfer scheme. Thune noted that this latest attempt to circumvent Congress would not only unfairly transfer the burden of forgiving billions of dollars in student debt onto those without loans, it does nothing to address the increasing cost of higher education.

Thune’s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):

“Mr. President, last month President Biden announced yet another student loan giveaway.

“Among other things, this latest scheme would waive accrued and capitalized interest for certain borrowers and, staggeringly, provide significant loan forgiveness for three-quarters of a million borrowers with an average household income of $312,976.

“Yes.

“President Biden’s latest reckless expenditure of taxpayer dollars will go in part to providing loan forgiveness for three-quarters of a million borrowers with an average household income above $300,000.

“All told, the president’s latest student loan giveaway will cost nearly $150 billion.

“That’s on top of the $475 BILLION in loan forgiveness the president announced last summer.

“That scheme – which the administration dubbed the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, or the SAVE Plan – will implement de facto loan forgiveness on a massive scale by creating a system in which the majority of future federal borrowers will never fully repay their student loans.

“The Department of Education estimated that borrowers with only undergraduate debt enrolled in the SAVE program can, on average, expect to pay back just $6,121 for each $10,000 they borrow.

“That amounts to the federal government taking on – on average – almost 40 percent of the cost of these borrowers’ student loans.

“Mr. President, there are so many problems with the president’s plans that it’s difficult to even know where to begin.

“First, there is the staggering cost of these and other Biden administration student loan programs.

“The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget – where the president’s own treasury secretary used to sit on the board – had this to say: ‘Including the Biden Administration’s new student debt cancellation plan, we estimate all recent student debt cancellation policies will cost a combined $870 billion to $1.4 trillion. That’s more than all federal spending on higher education over the nation’s entire history.’

“Let me just repeat that, Mr. President.

“‘That’s more than all federal spending on higher education over the nation’s entire history.’

“And ‘[t]he vast majority of this debt cancellation,’ the committee notes, ‘was put in place through executive actions under President Biden.’

“So, Mr. President, the staggering cost of President Biden’s giveaways is one major problem.

“Especially when you consider another major problem – which is that the president’s giveaways will do nothing to fix the actual problem, which is the cost of higher education.

“In fact, they could very well make things worse.

“For one, there’s reason to fear that his student loan giveaways could actually encourage colleges to raise their prices.

“And of course the president’s giveaways will do nothing to encourage students to only borrow what they can afford.

“Indeed, there’s a good chance students will increase their borrowing as a result of the president’s plans.

“So, Mr. President, President Biden’s student loan schemes will cost a massive amount of money while doing nothing to solve higher education costs.

“But the problems don’t end there.

“To start with, there’s the question of whether or not what the president is doing is even lawful.

“Last summer, the Supreme Court struck down the president’s original student loan forgiveness plan because the president lacked the statutory authority to forgive student loans.

“And there’s reason to wonder whether his SAVE plan or these latest measures could be struck down in the courts as well.

“And of course, Mr. President, on top of all of these issues, there is also the fundamental unfairness of asking taxpayers who never went to college, or who worked hard to pay off the full balance on their own student loans, or who worked their way through school to avoid a heavy loan burden, or who covered the cost of their education by enlisting in the military and risking their lives for their country, to shoulder the massive cost of all this loan forgiveness.

“Why should someone who never went to college be taking on the burden of loan forgiveness for borrowers making in excess of $300,000 a year?

“And then, of course, there’s the troubling message sent to students when we teach them that they can expect to be bailed out for the debt they take on, even though they agreed to repay it.

“I could go on.

“Mr. President, the president announced his first student loan forgiveness scheme two months before the 2022 congressional elections.

“And I suspect it’s no coincidence that he expects to implement his latest student loan giveaway this fall.

“Last week I joined Senator Cassidy and Congresswoman Foxx on a bicameral letter to the secretary of education urging him to withdraw this latest plan.

“But unfortunately I suspect that the president and his administration won’t be withdrawing anything that they think could win them a few votes in November.

“And so the American people will once again have to endure yet another disastrous Biden administration spending plan.

“Mr. President, I yield the floor.”