A Georgia congressman has introduced a bill that would prohibit President Joe Biden’s administration from canceling student debt, a cause championed by the progressive Left.
“Hardworking Americans are not responsible for paying off the student loan debt of others,” said Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA-03) in a press release. “The Biden Administration’s radical big government proposal would come at the expense of taxpayers – many of whom have fully paid off their student loans, worked hard to pay for their education, or chose not to enroll in college at all.”
“To make matters worse, Biden’s plan allows the IRS to snoop into private tax filing data in an effort to determine who qualifies for its forgiveness program – an extreme authoritarian overreach that is simply unconstitutional,” he said. “Even though the president lacks statutory authority to implement a mass scale cancellation of student debt, the Student Loan Accountability Act puts this fundamentally unfair discussion to rest. Instead, Congress must focus on market driven solutions that bring down the cost of higher education, including reducing the government’s role in the student loan market.”
The bill, HR 8006, is officially titled the Student Loan Accountability Act.
“The Secretary of Education, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Attorney General may not implement, or publish in any form, any regulation, or take any action, that modifies, alters, amends, cancels, discharges, forgives, or defers the repayment of any student debt not expressly permitted within statute or regulation, regarding covered loans, except to the extent that such regulation or action reflects the clear and unequivocal intent of Congress in legislation,” the text of the bill says.
Ferguson’s office did not return a Tuesday request for further comment.
Biden has continuously tiptoed around the issue of student debt cancellation.
In an appeal to progressives, he promised he would eliminate at least $10,000 per borrower in student debt during his 2020 campaign for the nation’s highest office.
Recent reports indicate that he is close to keeping that campaign promise.
While Republicans like Ferguson oppose the plan, progressives have also met it with skepticism, saying that Biden should eliminate all student debt.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) has championed the cause of eliminating all student loan debt, and called Biden’s $10,000 plan a “halfway approach.”
“We can’t just pick an arbitrary number despite so many people wanting to do so,” she said. “There’s an actual level where wealth inequity starts to get reduced.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Drew Ferguson” by Rep. Drew Ferguson. Background Photo “Biden Administration” by The White House.
