{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=FB954D30-7A6F-4FAE-898E-6B7AEDCA1824", "Thune: South Dakota Taxpayers are Footing the Bill for Biden\u2019s Unprecedented Student Loan Bailout", "2022-09-07", "2022", "2022-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Click here or on the picture above to watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today discussed President Biden\u2019s unprecedented decision to transfer the cost of student loan debt from those who chose to incur the debt to those taxpayers who didn\u2019t. He noted that it\u2019s inherently unfair, encourages students to take on even more debt, and does nothing to address the skyrocketing cost of college education. Thune also noted that instead of focusing on policies that would help lower inflation for American families, Democrats instead chose to pursue their reckless tax-and-spending spree in order to appease their far-left base.\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cMr. President, eight days.\n\n\u201cEight days.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s how long it took President Biden to completely erase any of the supposed deficit reduction included in Democrats\u2019 so-called Inflation Reduction Act.\n\n\u201cOn August 24, eight days after signing the Inflation Reduction Act into law, President Biden announced that with a stroke of his pen, he would be forgiving $10,000 in student loan debt ($20,000 for Pell Grant recipients) and taking other costly measures on student loans.\n\n\u201cThe Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget \u2013 where Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen served before joining the Biden administration \u2013 estimates that, altogether, the president\u2019s student loan changes will cost anywhere from $440 billion to $600 billion over the next decade.\n\n\u201cThe Penn Wharton Budget Model suggests that it could be even worse than that, with the total cost over 10 years exceeding $1 trillion.\n\n\u201cMr. President, even using the most optimistic assumptions, the Inflation Reduction Act would only ever have reduced the deficit by around $300 billion.\n\n\u201cPresident Biden\u2019s student loan plan will wipe out every dime of that reduction, and then add hundreds of billions to the debt on top of that.\n\n\u201cSo much for Democrats\u2019 commitment to reducing the deficit.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019ve already noted that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the president\u2019s student loan measures will cost a staggering half a trillion dollars over the next decade.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s what else the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget had to say:\n\n\u201c\u2018The student debt cancellation and relief measures announced \u2026 by the Biden Administration \u2026 would meaningfully boost inflation.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Would meaningfully boost inflation.\u2019\n\n\u201cYes.\n\n\u201cAmericans have spent the majority of the Biden administration struggling with huge increases in the price of everything from gas to groceries, and the president just imposed a new policy that is likely to, quote, \u2018meaningfully boost inflation.\u2019\n\n\u201cI guess it isn\u2019t surprising, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cAfter all, it\u2019s thanks in large part to Democrats and the president that we ended up in this inflation crisis in the first place.\n\n\u201cTheir reckless American Rescue Plan spending spree flooded the economy with unnecessary government money, and the economy overheated as a result.\n\n\u201cBut the president\u2019s latest reckless action underscores just how committed Democrats are to their big-spending, big-government agenda.\n\n\u201cMr. President, Democrats tried to suggest that they\u2019d gotten serious about the economy with their so-called Inflation Reduction Act \u2013 even though the bill was only serious about spending taxpayer dollars on ill-considered priorities like their Green New Deal agenda.\n\n\u201cBut the fact that it took the president exactly eight days to wipe out any deficit reduction from Democrats\u2019 bill tells you all you need to know about exactly how serious Democrats are about handling taxpayer dollars responsibly.\n\n\u201cMr. President, I\u2019ve talked for a while here about why the president\u2019s student loan plans are such bad economic policy.\n\n\u201cBut you don\u2019t have to take my word for it.\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s what former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman had to say about President Biden\u2019s student loan plans: \u201cPouring roughly half [a] trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnother former Obama economic adviser noted, and I quote, \u2018Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. \u2026 It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.\u2019\n\n\u201cEven some current Democrat members of Congress have expressed their concerns about the president\u2019s reckless student loan decision.\n\n\u201cAnd the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget \u2013 where President Biden\u2019s own treasury secretary once served on the board \u2013 issued a scathing statement in which she said, and I quote:\n\n\u201c\u2018This announcement is gallingly reckless \u2013 with the national debt approaching record levels and inflation surging, it will make both worse. \u2026 It would do nothing to actually make education more affordable, and if anything, this policy will drive up tuition costs while raising prices on a variety of other goods and services for ordinary Americans.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018\u2026 while raising prices on a variety of other goods and services for ordinary Americans.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, as the Washington Post\u2019s editorial board noted, American taxpayers will be footing the bill for the president\u2019s student loan decision.\n\n\u201cOrdinary Americans will pay in the form of higher prices.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ll pay in the form of higher rates on loans and mortgages.\n\n\u201cAnd they\u2019ll pay in the form of higher tuition costs.\n\n\u201cThe majority of Americans do not have student loan debt \u2013 either because they\u2019ve paid off their loans, never went to college, got a scholarship or worked their way through college, or were able to go thanks to their or their parents\u2019 savings.\n\n\u201cNow these Americans will be footing the bill for the 13 percent of Americans who do have student loan debt.\n\n\u201cEveryone is going to have to suffer economically to provide loan forgiveness for the few.\n\n\u201cThis is deeply unfair, Mr. President.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s unfair to expect Americans who either never went to college, paid off their loans, or paid their way through to shoulder the cost of other Americans\u2019 loans.\n\n\u201cThe president\u2019s decision is unfair to parents who scrimped and saved to send their children to college.\n\n\u201cTo students who chose a lower-cost college or worked to put themselves through.\n\n\u201cTo the men and women in the military who fought for this country to earn money for their college education.\n\n\u201cAnd to the families struggling with high grocery bills and high energy bills and high rent prices who are likely to end up facing even more price increases thanks to the president\u2019s student loan decisions.\n\n\u201cAnd let\u2019s remember that taxpayers are going to be facing economic hardship to pay off student loans for Americans who, if they graduated from college, enjoy greater long-term earning potential than many of the Americans who will be helping to shoulder the burden for their debts.\n\n\u201cThe president\u2019s plan isn\u2019t even targeted to the most needy, with families making $250,000 \u2013 nearly ten times the poverty line for a family of four \u2013 now eligible to have their loans forgiven.\n\n\u201cMr. President, there\u2019s no doubt that the cost of a college education has risen outrageously.\n\n\u201cAnd that in some cases students have been encouraged to take on unrealistic levels of debt to pay for it.\n\n\u201cBut the president\u2019s student loan plan does absolutely NOTHING to fix these problems.\n\n\u201cThe president\u2019s plan will not only do nothing to control the cost of college education, it will almost undoubtedly make our current situation worse.\n\n\u201cWhat college is going to spend time worrying about lowering student fees if it can expect the federal government to pick up part of the bill for its students\u2019 education?\n\n\u201cThe president\u2019s plan will also do nothing to discourage students from taking on unrealistic levels of debt.\n\n\u201cIn fact, it\u2019s likely to encourage students to incur even more debt, since the president has now set up an expectation that the government will step in to help pay down students\u2019 loan burden.\n\n\u201cGiven the fact that student loan debt is expected to be back to its current level in six years, I imagine we will be hearing more Democrat calls for student loan forgiveness in the very near future.\n\n\u201cIn fact, some members of the Democrat Party already think the president didn\u2019t go far enough.\n\n\u201cMore than one Democrat wanted the president to forgive $50,000 in debt.\n\n\u201cApparently these Democrats won\u2019t be satisfied until our economy drowns entirely under the weight of reckless government spending.\n\n\u201cMr. President, the defining \u2018achievement\u2019 of the Biden administration so far has been an economy that has left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet.\n\n\u201cApparently the president wants that to be his legacy.\n\n\u201cBecause for the sake of a few possible additional votes in November, he has decided to pursue yet another economic policy that will almost undoubtedly result in further economic pain for the American people.\n\n\u201cNow he\u2019ll just have to hope that his strategy doesn\u2019t backfire.\n\n\u201cBecause while his reckless student loan plan may buy him a vote or two, a lot of other Americans may decide that they\u2019ve had their fill of inflationary spending and far-left appeasement.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:29:59Z"]], "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=FB954D30-7A6F-4FAE-898E-6B7AEDCA1824"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5469212085008621, "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"}