The Future Forum

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Well, first of all, I want to thank the
gentleman from California and the gentleman from Pennsylvania for their
hard work in this subject matter area.

Certainly we know that all credit debt combined is exceeded by the
amount of debt that those who attend and receive a college education
are currently bearing and the awful burden that that has created on the
working members of the middle class and how difficult a burden it is,
so I commend the gentlemen for their efforts here on the floor.

First of all, it starts with our budget that we debated today in
making sure that there are not cuts to Pell grants, but there are
investments made in Pell grants.

Frankly, as people talk about repatriation, that is, as both the
gentlemen from Pennsylvania and California know, where money has been
sent overseas, and there is a lot of talk about bringing money back and
what will we do with that, what about a trust fund that will allow an
opportunity for young people all across America to refinance and
restructure their ability to pay off their college debt? It is not a
novel idea.

After all, isn't that what we did for Wall Street after 2008? Isn't
that what we did to make sure that banks and financial institutions
didn't fail? Shouldn't we do this for the human infrastructure, for all
those hard-working families who have refinanced their home, who have
gone into their personal savings, who are saddled with enormous amounts
of debt?

What a great thing for the country and how valuable that would be for
people to once again be able to have completed a college education,
place themselves in a position to be more productive members of
society, but also in a position where they are not burdened with the debt that prevents them from carrying on a life, to get married, to purchase a
first home, to buy a new automobile, all the things that help our
economy grow, all the reasons that they went to college in the first
place.

So I commend the two gentlemen for their continuous work in this
area, your support of the Democratic budget. What a great job that
Chris Van Hollen did today articulating the values that this side of
the aisle has been putting forward not only in terms of the morality of
the issue, but also the economic impact that it has on so many working
families.

I hope that our distinguished colleagues from California and
Pennsylvania will join us in the second hour in a discussion on all
generations on Social Security.

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