{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=DDF7398B-09B8-4FF6-81A7-8EF3B585AF9A", "Thune Condemns Biden\u2019s Newest Student Loan Giveaway", "2023-09-12", "2023", "2023-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor about President Biden\u2019s most recent student loan giveaway scheme, which would forgive student loan balances after 10 years of payments for certain borrowers, including those in high-income households. Thune noted that instead of creating a real plan to lower the costs of higher education, President Biden continues to propose budget-busting student loan bailouts that would force 87 percent of Americans who do not have student loan debt to bear the costs of the 13 percent of Americans who do. Last week, Thune joined his colleagues in introducing a resolution of disapproval to block the president\u2019s plan.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, three weeks ago, President Biden officially launched the second part of his student loan giveaway \u2013 his dramatic overhaul of the REPAYE program, an income-driven repayment plan for federal student loans.\n\n\u201cThe president\u2019s revamp flew under the radar a bit when it was first announced, overshadowed by his plan to \u2018forgive\u2019 up to $10,000 of student loan debt outright \u2013 $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.\n\n\u201cBut the truth is that the president\u2019s new income-driven repayment plan \u2013 which he has dubbed the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, or the SAVE plan \u2013 is just as problematic, if not more, as the president\u2019s scheme to forgive student debt outright.\n\n\u201cBecause the new SAVE plan will create a system in which the majority of future federal borrowers will never fully repay their student loans.\n\n\u201cThe nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that just 24.6 percent of future borrowers will repay their loans in full.\n\n\u201cIn other words, less than a quarter of borrowers.\n\n\u201cThe Department of Education estimates 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.\n\n\u201cThat amounts to the federal government taking on \u2013 on average \u2013 almost 40 percent of the cost of these undergraduates\u2019 student loans.\n\n\u201cSo, Mr. President, let\u2019s call this what it is: loan forgiveness by another name.\n\n\u201cAnd you don\u2019t have to take my word for it.\n\n\u201cOne scholar from the left-leaning Urban Institute had this to say on NPR the other day, \u2018I think it's going to be less obvious that it's a big loan forgiveness program to both borrowers and onlookers as well. But, yeah, it\u2019s a big loan forgiveness program. \u2026 So no longer a safety net like it has been in the past for undergraduates \u2013 this looks more like a broad-based subsidy for undergraduate degrees through loan forgiveness.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018A broad-based subsidy for undergraduate degrees through loan forgiveness.\u2019\n\n\u201cOr, in the words of one scholar from the American Enterprise Institute, \u2018a functional entitlement program\u2019 \u2013 whose costs, he adds, \u2018will prove difficult to control.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, I don\u2019t need to tell anyone that the problems here are myriad.\n\n\u201cFor starters, someone is going to have to bear the costs of all those unrepaid student loans.\n\n\u201cAnd that someone is American taxpayers.\n\n\u201cIncluding taxpayers who worked hard to pay off the full balance on their own student loans, without a handout from the federal government.\n\n\u201cAnd taxpayers who worked their way through school to avoid a heavy loan burden.\n\n\u201cAnd parents who scrimped and saved to send their children to college debt-free.\n\n\u201cAnd individuals who covered the cost of their education by enlisting in the military and risking their lives for their country.\n\n\u201cI could go on.\n\n\u201cI am at a loss to understand why taxpayers as a whole should assume a substantial part of the educational burden for individuals, who, if they graduated from college, have greater long-term earning potential than many of the Americans who will be helping to shoulder the burden for their debts.\n\n\u201cAnd, of course, this program isn\u2019t just being offered to help with undergraduate debt.\n\n\u201cGraduate students, including those in professional degree programs like medical school and law school, will also be eligible for SAVE.\n\n\u201cAnd I don\u2019t need to tell anyone that the lifetime earning potential of a doctor or a lawyer is usually pretty good.\n\n\u201cBut leaving aside questions of fairness, Mr. President, let\u2019s talk about the costs of this de facto new entitlement program.\n\n\u201cPenn Wharton Budget Model estimates that SAVE will cost roughly half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.\n\n\u201cWe have a national debt of $32 trillion and a federal budget that has increased by 41 percent since 2019.\n\n\u201cContrary to what President Biden seems to believe, we can\u2019t afford to be constantly expanding government programs.\n\n\u201cWe simply don\u2019t have the money to be subsidizing the college \u2013 and graduate! \u2013 education of a group of people whose earning potential will exceed the earning potential of a lot of the people subsidizing their schooling.\n\n\u201cMr. President, perhaps the worst thing about the president\u2019s new program is that we will be spending all that money and doing nothing to solve the real problem \u2013 the high cost of a college education.\n\n\u201cPresident Biden\u2019s student loan giveaway provides exactly zero incentive for colleges to contain costs.\n\n\u201cIn fact, there\u2019s reason to fear it could actually encourage colleges to raise their prices, or at least make them significantly less reluctant to do so.\n\n\u201cAnd, of course, the president\u2019s proposal does nothing to discourage students from borrowing substantial amounts of money to finance their education.\n\n\u201cIndeed, there\u2019s a good chance students will increase their borrowing as a result of the president\u2019s plan.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the president\u2019s ill-conceived student loan giveaway is a tremendous disservice to taxpayers \u2013 and a terrible move for our economic health.\n\n\u201cAnd, as I said, it does nothing to address the real problem \u2013 the high cost of higher education.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s why last week I joined Senator Cassidy to introduce a resolution of disapproval to block the president\u2019s plan.\n\n\u201cAnd I encourage members of both parties to support this resolution.\n\n\u201cAnyone who cares about actually addressing the cost of higher education should oppose a program that not only fails to solve the underlying problems but is likely to make things worse.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:35:26Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=DDF7398B-09B8-4FF6-81A7-8EF3B585AF9A"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.2872171830385923, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}