Andy Biggs

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Good for engaging me in this colloquy. I want to talk briefly about this number that has been put out there. He is asking the question: Will we rise to the occasion? I am going to give the bad news first. This is like in ``The Matrix,'' the first version, where they give you the red pill or the blue pill. The red pill is reality. The blue pill is you can continue on in your slumber. I am going to propose a different pill, and it is a black pill. The black pill, I would suggest to you, means that reality is the awful truth. The awful truth here is we know that we are not going to rise to the moment. Why do we know that? Because in the context of everything you just gave us, I want to talk about that supplemental that has been proposed by the Senate. We have already passed out of this body a $14.5 billion supplemental package for Israel. We found a way to pay for it. It goes to the Senate. They don't bother to take it up. They don't want that. In fact, one of the Republican appropriators over there said: We don't do that; we don't pay for supplementals. Wow. You know what? That individual was correct. It had never been done before. We did it, but they don't want to do that. Instead, they want to leverage a controversial spend of $61 billion for Ukraine funding by leveraging what Israel needs, our good friend in the Levant. That is what they want to leverage. You know what they throw in there, as well? They throw in some money for Taiwan; they throw in some money for the border. I won't get into the border until you yield more time, but I will tell you this: That money they are talking about for the border is not to stop the 10,000 to 12,000 people per day coming into the country; it is to facilitate their entry and dispersion throughout the country. If you think we are going to rise to the moment when we are dealing with a group of people across the way, the leadership over there, that have proposed that--and I am seeing, sadly, a momentum for that to happen right here on the floor of this Chamber--then I would tell you the black pill has been swallowed, and there is trouble and tough sledding ahead for the United States of America because the people who have been elected to fight that are acquiescing.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, first of all, when the gentleman starts talking about that, he raises a point that I have been arguing vociferously about for some time, and that is Republicans manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory over and over again. We negotiate against ourselves. That is what is happening on the supplemental. That is what is happening on the NDAA. We passed out of the Judiciary Committee today a bill, hugely bipartisan, 35 people voted for it, 2 against it, including massive reforms, reforms that groups across the spectrum, from right to left, Republican and Democrat, have said these are the reforms we need to see. The leverage goes away when you give an extension into April for FISA in its current form, which is what the Speaker is acquiescing to after telling us he wasn't going to go there. That is negotiating against yourself. Why is that? What happens? The leverage against the Senate on FISA then goes away. I was not surprised to know that Chairman Turner said he will let the Judiciary bill come to the floor. Why wouldn't he? Because he knows that the leverage is now gone and the Senate has no incentive to take up a meaningful reform bill. That is the problem. It goes back to the border. The border is the same way. There were 12,000 people that came across yesterday. That was an all-time single-day record. There were 12,000 people encountered. That does not include the 10,000 people that got away. You are looking at 300,000 plus for the month of December that we can project already. That will be a record. We say, oh, let's do H.R. 2. We did H.R. 2. That was a good, solid border security package.

Mr. BIGGS. We got it through. It went through and is languishing in the Senate. We say things like: I will tell you what, let's put the H.R. 2 bill on the supplemental. We are not going to do anything with regard to the supplemental unless you actually give us border security. It isn't policy anymore because the policy doesn't work unless you have a lawful, rule of law type of government. We don't. We flat out don't. This administration is lawless. They are not going to follow the law. They are not following the law now. They are not following the law on FISA, which is why we have to reform FISA. They are not following the law on the border policies and the border laws. This is why we have got to say we are going to stop funding a government that is lawless and surveils American citizens and allows us to be overrun. Did you know that in Portland, Oregon, they had more than 300 fentanyl overdose deaths in the first 3 months of this fiscal year? They are on track for over 1,200.

Mr. BIGGS. Just in Portland. I am telling you that this is a regime that is okay with dismantling our country. It is time that we stand up and say no more. No more. I am happy to talk about any other topic that you want.

Mr. BIGGS. What I would tell you is that when you have--let's take Lukeville, Arizona, a small port of entry. There are people going from Phoenix and Tucson down to the Sea of Cortez and they are going to go down to Rocky Point, which is a lovely seaside village. It is a small town, and people love to go down there. It is closed now. Do you know why it is closed? Because so many people, groups of 1,000 illegal aliens, are coming to that port of entry. There is no way to process them. There is no way to get them to Ajo or the Three Points Station or the Casa Grande station because that takes hours. They closed that down. You can now see sitting there 1,000 individuals. If you look closely, you won't find a single woman or a child in that 1,000. They are all men ages 18 to 35 from multitudes of nations. You say: What are we willing to do? I am going to offer a humble suggestion.

Mr. BIGGS. It is my suggestion and it is this: This administration is lawless and has no desire to enforce the laws already in place. What I would say is, how do you incentivize them? Do you incentivize them by allowing them to keep the FRA spending? Do you incentivize them when you say, okay, I will tell you what, we are going to keep your Green New Deal subsidies that you said would not cost more than $350 billion, which will now cost more than $2 trillion? Will you do anything if we don't stop funding the things you desire? The answer is no. What I would say is, we know that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and veterans' benefits will continue on. Why not then identify that we are going to pay for ICE, CBP, the air traffic controllers, TSA, the military men and women, and then say that is it, Mr. Biden. That is all we are going to continue funding. That is the basic minimum to make sure that Americans are safe. We refuse to do more spending. By the way, we are having to borrow significant portions of that. We refuse to keep borrowing money and go in debt so future generations will go bankrupt themselves until you secure the border with demonstrable and measurable metrics. I will give you one example. Yuma, Arizona. Yuma has one hospital and there are about 80,000 people in Yuma. The emergency room on most days is completely filled with illegal aliens. The local people, people who are going to have babies. If there is a woman ready to deliver, do you know where she is going? She is driving 3 hours up to Phoenix or 3\1/2\ hours over to San Diego. The people with heart conditions that need procedures on an emergency basis, same thing, they are getting Air Evac'd up to Phoenix or San Diego. Here is the deal. Under the last full year of Donald Trump as the President, do you know what they had? They had a total of 8,600 encounters. That is for a year. Do you know what they are doing in a week now? About 8,000 a week. That is under this administration. Do you think it is not a crisis? Go down there and talk to the planters who have had to literally plow under fields because these people come across, they go walking through the fields. These are sensitive fields. Why is that important? Because more than 90 percent of all green vegetables provided to this country during the winter months come out of Yuma, Arizona. It is a hazard to our food supply. This administration doesn't care if it is a hazard to food supply. They don't care if you have got 1,200 people going to die of fentanyl overdose in Portland, Oregon. They just don't care. They are not going to actually follow the law, so we have got to incentivize them. If we do not have the courage to incentivize them, then why the hell did we come to Congress?

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to serve with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good). Let me say two things. I am more than willing to be here over the next 5 weeks if it means that we can work to get these things addressed. Mr. Speaker, I will tell you one more reason why you should not be giving up on FISA and why you should not be extending it. It is because the authorities and warrants issued before April 10 will continue on into 2025. We will have lost, perhaps even forever, our ability to reform a program that has been weaponized against the United States of America and our beloved fellow citizens.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment that would cut funding for the student financial assistance account by $9.25 billion. The student financial assistance account is being funded at $22 billion for fiscal year 2024. This account provides funding for grants, loans, and other financial assistance to students who choose to pursue higher education, but the Federal Government's subsidization of higher education costs for individuals has actually created perverse incentives for higher education institutions to raise prices for all students and prospective students. This is a spiral and cycle that has been going on for decades. A 2017 study from the Federal Reserve found the average tuition increase associated with expansion of student loans is as much as 60 cents per dollar. Federal student loan subsidies don't help students with the cost of higher education. These subsidies actually result in increased costs for higher education, tuition, fees, and expenses. With the Federal Government bearing the brunt of student loans, colleges are guaranteed to get the funding they ask for at the expense of the American taxpayer. This is a cycle that only leads to higher spending each fiscal year. Cutting funding for this program would claw back billions that could be diverted to lowering the national debt and the financial burden on the taxpayer. The Federal Government should not have a place in the monetary affairs of its private citizens. That is a matter for private banks, colleges, and students. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, as it stands today, Americans owe over $1.7 trillion in student loan debt, more than 5 percent of the Nation's total $33 trillion debt. The annual cost of attendance for students living on campus at a public 4-year State institution is 26 grand, or over $104,000 for a 4- year degree. Out-of-State students pay $27,000, or over $108,000. Private nonprofit university students pay 55 grand, or more than $225,000. Do you know what is a new low? Do you know what is cruel? Do you know what is unconscionable? It is sending kids out with worthless degrees with debt that they can never sustain. It is a new low to oppose something like this because you know what is driving this? It is the exponential growth of children and kids who are coming up who cannot afford education because your grants, your continued giving of taxpayer funding to the universities has actually increased the number of people who have to get assistance. Why? Because tuition has spiked. It is growing multiples of the inflation rate. That is what is cruel. That is what is unconscionable. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, what is driving the increased costs of tuition? Well, most of that is because the bureaucratization of academia. That drives costs higher every year. Let's go back to that 2017 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The average tuition increase associated with expansion of student loans is 60 cents for every dollar. So when your tuition is going up a buck, 60 cents of it is because of expansion of student loan programs. The Biden administration's efforts to eliminate student loan debt is wrong--wrong because they force everyday Americans to pay for the student loans taken out by others and wrong because they doubled down on a failed public policy that incentivizes price increases. You incentivize tuition to go up. Why would a university ever reduce its tuition or its costs? They know that they have the Federal Government to backstop every student who wants to go in. The way to curb the rise in both college tuition and student debt is to get the Federal Government out of the student loan business. The result will bring about more fiscally responsible citizens and a more fiscally responsible Federal Government. This would make the loan market more responsible and cause colleges to rein in their costs and reduce tuition so fewer students would need Pell grants or private aid. Private lending would also limit taxpayers' exposure to billions of dollars in student loan defaults. Did I say billions? I meant to say trillions because that is where we sit. Now, I want to respond in the time I have left to the cynical statement by the previous speaker who was talking about aid to Israel. We passed aid to Israel by a 226-196 vote. How did that happen? Mr. Chair, 196 of my friends across the aisle did not want to provide aid to Israel in that circumstance. Mr. Chair, I urge people to adopt this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I ask my friends: Do you support a tax on private Christian universities by the Department of Education, the very Department that I am trying to defund? When you talk about the American Dream, student loan debt is crushing graduates, which is why when you look at polling, it indicates very clearly that young graduates do not believe they will attain the American Dream that their parents had access to. They are coming out with crushing student debt at the same time that that same Department is trying to crush very fine universities. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I rise to speak in support of my amendment that would strike funding for the Student Aid Administration. The Student Aid Administration provides funding for the government to administer student financial assistance programs, including funding for the office responsible for ensuring accountability for higher education institutions who receive Federal dollars. Unfortunately, under this administration, this regime, the Department of Education has developed a pattern of attacking large, higher education institutions that have a religious affiliation. I will give you two of these today. The Department of Education has repeatedly gone after Grand Canyon University, the largest private Christian university in the country. The Department of Education levied a $37.7 million fine. This is the largest fine in the Department's history. GCU was a nonprofit from its inception in 1949 until 2004 when they partnered with private investors in order to avoid closing. In 2018, GCU returned to its nonprofit status and is recognized by the IRS, the Higher Learning Commission, the State of Arizona, Arizona Private Postsecondary Board, and the NCAA. However, despite all this, the Department of Education has refused to acknowledge GCU's nonprofit status for purposes of Federal student financial aid. By not acknowledging GCU's nonprofit status, the Department of Education is able to target GCU and others as ``bad actors due to the disproportionate number of Americans who attend those schools and then default on Federal student loans.'' However, GCU provides much higher levels of transparency than are legally required, and it is considered a leader in education transparency. The Department of Education, for instance, only requires universities to provide cost estimates for the first year in college-- for first-year, first-time students, and only for undergraduate programs, but GCU goes beyond these requirements by providing cost estimates for each year of the program study and for all of its degree programs, including the doctoral level. Rather than apply what GCU has done, the Department has attacked them, making this fine all the more troubling. The Department of Education is trying to make the claim that GCU lied to students about the cost to attend doctorate programs, but that is inaccurate. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, GCU's degree program calculator provides the total estimated cost for a 60-credit doctoral program the exact same way it does for other degree programs. That is not required under the Department of Education, but the Department of Education still goes after them. GCU in its effort for clear transparency in red print above the calculator makes clear both the average number of continuation courses and cost for continuation courses that students may need to complete a doctoral dissertation. The Department of Ed even acknowledges that GCU provides this disclosure, but nonetheless, continues to go after them. GCU graduates are incurring less debt than the national average due to its affordable tuition rates, and still, the Department of Ed goes after them. A GAO report found that 91 percent of American colleges have misleading information in their financial aid offers, but GCU is the only nonprofit university being attacked from the Department of Education. At the same time, Liberty University is being threatened with a similar $37 million fine by the Department of Education, alleging Clery Act violations based on a preliminary report in May of this year. Liberty University has fully cooperated with the Department's investigation and found the Department made significant errors, misstatements, and unsupported conclusions in their findings. Why is Liberty University getting threatened with what would be another $37 million fine from the Department of Education when they are fully cooperating? These two big universities are two of the largest Christian universities in America. Is that why they are being attacked by this Department of Education? It certainly seems to be the case. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I am going to respond to the ``scurrilous'' comments made in the last statement. Nothing in my amendment addressed online, for-profit private colleges, postsecondary. That was a deliberate mischaracterization of what I said, because the two universities I talked about are both nonprofit universities, recognized as postsecondary education institutions. GCU is recognized by the IRS as nonprofit, Higher Learning Commission, State of Arizona, and the Arizona Private Postsecondary Board. Liberty University is equal in their classification. To say what was said for 2\1/2\ minutes, to actually misdirect and try to misattribute my purpose, was an ascribing of motivations which should have been taken down. Mr. Chair, I rise now to speak in support of my amendment, which would strike funding for the higher education account. It appropriates over $2.7 billion. This account provides appropriations for grant programs that provide direct taxpayer support to higher education institutions. The effect of government subsidy and control has been more damaging than anyone has yet realized. Coupled with student assistance programs, direct government assistance to institutions has led to increased education costs and administrative costs. Let's think of it. College costs are out of control. Harvard, the total cost of attending for 4 years is now around $300 grand. College costs have risen to this level because D.C. is heavily subsidizing tuition through Federal grants and loans, leaving colleges and universities free to increase their prices because they know the Federal Government is going to pick up the tab in between. In FY 2023, we enacted a level of $2.994 billion, $600 million more than fiscal year 2019. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, it is a shame that people make aspersions on the floor when they don't know anything about a subject. I think of Grand Canyon University and the 35,000 students on campus, on a physical plant, in Phoenix, Arizona. I just heard that they are an online school. Go tell those people who commute or live in the dorms at one of the fastest growing physical plant campuses in the country. It is like saying the University of Arizona is an online school, with their 35,000 students, because they have an online program where you can get a bachelor's degree without ever setting foot on campus, or ASU or BYU, or any of the hundreds of other campuses. How can you misdirect and try to attack an amendment when you simply don't know what is going on with what you are saying? It is astounding. It is astounding. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chairman, nobody wants to revoke postsecondary education. What we want to do is acknowledge what the Federal Government has done to distort the cost of education. The New York Fed itself has said it is eating it up, and 60 percent of every tuition increase is coming because of this aid. We want to get it down so it is affordable again. We want nobody leaving college crushed by the student debt that they have. That is what is going on here. The fiscal year 2023 enacted level was $3 billion. That is $600 million more than just a few years before in 2019. The 2024 number is slightly less, but it doesn't do enough to cut spending when we are $35.5 trillion in debt. Let's talk about what is happening. Universities are discriminating against conservative-leaning students. We see that. We had a hearing on that just last week. A recent University of North Carolina study found that conservative students within the UNC system face distinctive challenges when it comes to free speech and expression. Nearly 68 percent of conservative students are at least slightly concerned about possible social consequences that may come from voicing one's true opinion in class. It is a massive problem that higher education fosters. It is time that we move the Federal Government out of this business because they don't have any constitutional authority to be there in the first place. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of my amendment, which strikes funding for the Institute of Education Sciences. The current funding in the fiscal year 2024 bill is $707 million. The institute puts this funding toward programs such as governing boards of institutions of higher education, which is interested in the disclosure of gender, racial, and ethnic composition of governing boards of higher education to promote DEI institutions, which is a pointless use of information and resources. This institute puts funding toward programs such as cross-sectional studies. This is a program launched to provide real-time data about the impact of COVID-19 on public K-12 education. The content focuses on how COVID-19 is affecting the delivery of education and how schools are navigating recovery efforts from that epidemic. The Department of Education requested $4 million initially to further expand the survey across districts nationally. It is not a mission that the American taxpayer needs to fund, and it is a direct waste of our budget. It is offices such as this that contribute to the rapid wasteful spending that has become so commonplace in our country under our Federal Government. As far as the grant programs under the Institute of Education Sciences, they go toward post-COVID-19 research. This is research to accelerate pandemic recovery in special education grant programs and improve pandemic recovery efforts in education agencies' grant programs. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, under the Institute of Education Sciences, they will establish two research networks, the pre-kindergarten through grade 12 recovery research network and the community college recovery research network to study pandemic events. It is a grant that pertains to gender-integrated classrooms to see if boys and girls are better equipped to learn together or separately in the classroom. The fiscal year 2019 enacted level was over $615 million, but 2024 is currently set at over $707 million. That is a $90 million increase in just 5 years. This rate of growth is not sustainable. This program is part of what we could safely call the educational- industrial complex. Over the years, our predecessors created a constituency and expanded on it every year by giving more money. They justify it by putting more mandates and doing more studies that don't mean anything. They come back and do it again and again. Thus, we are well over $33 trillion in national debt. Our structural deficit last year was over $2 trillion. Fiscal year 2024 looks like it is going to be about the same, except we are going to be north of $35 trillion, $36 trillion in national debt. That is crushing. Mr. Chair, I take my colleagues back to the New York Fed and its study. Of every dollar of tuition that increased, 60 percent of that, 60 cents of that, goes to the fact that the Federal Government is meddling in postsecondary education. That is what is happening here. That is the educational-industrial complex. In December 2020, the Trump administration nominated Steve Hanke and John Yoo, both professors, to the advisory board for the IES. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona refused to acknowledge the appointments, deliver their credentials, or facilitate statutorily required board meetings. That is the educational-industrial complex that we are facing today. It is crushing. It is crushing our students who want an education. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Chair, the greatest strength of this body is that we represent constituents who send us here knowing that we are constrained in protecting their rights because we are limited by what we can and cannot do by that great document, the Constitution. I stand here willing to learn and find out where in the Constitution there is any specific authority for this body to meddle in postsecondary educational choices of the American people. That is the educational-industrial complex at work, for what we are seeing in the arguments against my amendments today. I support postsecondary education. I do not support the Federal Government meddling in the choices of individuals to get that education and how they are going to get it and the institutions that are providing it--the harassment that some of those institutions are receiving from this administration. Mr. Chair, I urge the adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Again, you know what I think is disgraceful? That we are going to start discussing someone's livelihood and say, oh, they have an impeccable background. Do you know who doesn't care about their livelihood and impeccable background? How about the kids that have been misplaced, over 100,000, many working in illegal labor jobs. They don't care about her livelihood. They would like to be cared for humanely. How about the children who have been sex trafficked? They don't care about her livelihood or her impeccable background, and I don't either. I care about those children. I think it is disgraceful that this administration continues to allow this kind of policy to be implemented if that is their policy. The vetting requirements that this director put in place facilitates this trafficking and abuse of these children. It is disgraceful. Mr. Chair, I urge people to adopt my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.