WASHINGTON—Brushing aside strong objections from the AFL-CIO and its own panel’s Democrats, the deeply partisan Republican majority on the highly polarized House Education and the Workforce Committee cut billions of dollars in federal education spending, specifically student loans.
The budget blueprint the entirely GOP-run Congress approved, on party-line votes, several weeks ago mandated the cuts. They feature an $880 billion 10-year-cut in Medicaid—which another House panel handled—and cuts in food aid and funds to schools which educate poor kids, plus slashes in college student aid, including Pell Grants, too.
Panel chair Tim Walberg, R-Mich., said the bulk of his committee’s $330 billion in cuts would come in lower and fewer loans. “The current system is effectively broken and pushes tuition prices upwards,” he said, in one of his milder statements during the late-April work session.
All the spending slashes from various House committees will be rolled into a giant “reconciliation” bill, and they’ll be used to pay for top Republican and Trump priorities.
But since the work session, the House’s ruling Republicans have been fighting each other over details of that measure–particularly whether to increase the cap on itemized deductions for state and local taxes. That’s a key issue for a group of Northeastern lawmakers who have vowed to vote “no” unless they get their way.
And there are enough of them—five Republicans—to sink the big reconciliation bill, given the slim GOP majority,
The centerpiece of reconciliation will be yet another tax cut for corporations and the rich, estimated to drain $4.5 trillion over the next eight years. That entire subsidy will go to Wall Street denizens, secret hedge fund traders, corporations, their CEOs and rich oligarchs such as Trump and his puppeteer, Elon Musk.
Reconciliation will also add $175 billion more for the military, pushing the Pentagon officially over $1 trillion. That sum includes $25 billion to start building a “Golden Dome” defense over the continental U.S. There will also be more money for ICE agents to roundup and deport brown-skinned people using the excuse that they’re all illegal migrants, and even more money for Trump’s racist Mexican Wall. And that’s for starters.
Opposed the cuts
The AFL-CIO and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., strongly protested the slashes. The panel’s ruling Republicans brushed them aside and crowed about forcing college students to repay their loans.
AFL-CIO Legislative Director Jody Calemine said the Republicans’ plan would hurt, not help, the struggling college students who, when they graduate, would face a mountain of debt.
“To pay for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, this bill would make higher education less accessible and more expensive for working families.,” Calemine wrote committee members.
It “eliminates subsidized undergraduate loans, increasing debt burdens for low-income and working students who can least afford it,” as well as graduate and parent plus loans. Those moves “cut off essential financing options for working-class families and graduate students.”
The GOP’s bill “caps student loan limits at levels that fall short of typical college costs, which may force students to abandon their education entirely or take on riskier, more expensive private loans.” Big banks love that, though Calemine didn’t say so.
The Republicans also end “existing income-driven repayment plans,” where loan payments are geared towards a graduate’s ability to pay. That was a Biden administration innovation which survived court challenges.
Instead, said Calemine, students would face “a more burdensome system that increases required payments and delays loan forgiveness, including borrowers” who go into public service careers.”
Left unsaid was that during Trump’s first term, 2017-21, his then Education Secretary, GOP donor Elizabeth “Betsy” DeVos, rejected all but 3% of those public service loan applicants. The Teachers (AFT) sued DeVos to to try to pry the money loose. They won the case, but DeVos ignored the ruling and wouldn’t OK loans.
The Republican measure also restricts Pell Grants to full-time students, eliminating grants to working parents and loan repayment deferrals due to “economic hardship” suffered by workers getting laid off.
If predatory trade schools aka “diploma mills” go belly-up while profiting off loan money from their students—as the Trump University did–the students are more likely to get stuck with the bills.
All this makes college both “less affordable and less accessible for millions of families,” all “to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.” Calemine concluded by urging the panel to reject the Republican cuts and instead make college more affordable, accessible and accountable.
Scott hit many of the same themes, and added a few of his own, describing what else the GOP rejected during the work session. School meals would be gone in pre-K-12 schools. Student loan debtors who fall behind could have their wages garnished. Colleges could ban access to contraception and reproductive health services.
And multibillionaire Musk, and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency computer nerds could use personal and sensitive financial information they grabbed off government computers for their own private gain, Scott said.
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