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Floor Speech

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Mr. BRAUN. I thank Senator Scott.

Mr. President, President Biden's student loan debt transfer does not cancel or forgive anything. These debts will still be paid. It is not like they go away.

What else does it say about the whole idea that, when you take on an obligation and you agree to it, you can just shirk it or get rid of it? There are many people across the country who would want to be in on that gambit as well. He has simply shifted the cost of repayment on to everyone, including to the 65 percent of American workers who chose not to get a college degree. What about the aspiring plumber or electrician who borrowed $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 for his or her own business? There would be no end to it.

We should focus on getting more value out of colleges rather than giving them another reason to hike prices. Sadly, the only place where that has been focused on is in my own home State, where Mitch Daniels, the ex-Governor of Indiana, froze tuition into 10 years. That is getting more value out, and that is why their enrollment has gone way up.

With a national debt of nearly $31 trillion, we can't continue to pile on more debt. When Senator Scott and I got here just a little over 3\1/2\ years ago, we were $18 trillion in debt. We throw ``trillions'' around now like we used to ``hundreds of billions,'' and it is on the backs of our kids and grandkids every time we do it.

Today, Federal Student Aid owns $1.6 trillion in outstanding Federal assets--in other words, student loans. The loan program needs to be completely redone so that colleges will be motivated to lower costs. This is an excuse to do the opposite.

Finally, President Biden's actions are illegal in the first place. The President doesn't have the authority to cancel all of this debt. I am hoping it gets taken to court, because what does it say, again, for future generations or anyone who makes a commitment to take on debt who can shirk it with the stroke of a pen?

Even Speaker Pelosi agreed on this point, saying she didn't think it was legal. Yet it doesn't make any difference in this day and age as we plow forward.

This is why the Debt Cancellation Accountability Act requires the Department of Education to get express appropriation from Congress to pay for any Federal student loan the Department proposes to waive, discharge, or reduce.

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Mr. BRAUN. So the plan that the Democrats are going to give you, not only on this, was put out clearly in President Biden's blueprint for our country to put us $45 trillion in debt in 10 years, where we will be paying as much on interest as we do on discretionary spending domestically or the military budget. That is no business plan.

How do you think they are going to pay for the debt forgiveness? They are going to borrow the money to do it, to backfill to pay the people who are owed the money.

One other point of clarification. When you had a practical bill--the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was done before Senator Scott and I got here--it was a plan to grow economic activity, a way to pay for it. Had COVID not come along, the CBO was ready to say that it was paying for itself because we were growing the economy at 3 percent. And the $150 billion per year over 10 years, which is chump change now compared to the $3 trillion the Democrats have put us in debt over the last year and a half, was growing the economy with zero inflation, raising wages in the toughest spots for those wage earners. We have always tried to do it without borrowing it from our kids and our grandkids.

I yield back the floor to Senator Scott.

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