John Kline

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, I yield myself the remainder of my time. It is clear, Madam Chair, that there is some dispute over what this does to the deficit. But I would argue that looking at the latest information from, as my friend from New Jersey says, the fair, nonpartisan arbiter of the facts, the Congressional Budget Office, this legislation will add to the deficit somewhere between $15 billion and $50 billion, subject to debate. What is absolutely clear is that forcing the public option is a government takeover. It does grow a government with more new programs, and it does force job losses. I think that's indisputable. Madam Chair, this is bad policy, it's a bad bill, and I urge a ``no'' vote. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, can I inquire of the Chair the remaining time?

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, I will continue to reserve.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from East Tennessee, Dr. Roe.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, may I inquire again as to the time remaining.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Price, a member of the committee.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished ranking member on the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri). (Mr. PETRI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton). (Mr. BURTON of Indiana asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, could I inquire how much time is remaining, please?

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, at this time I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. At this time I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the ranking member on the Higher Education Subcommittee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie).

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3221, and yield myself such time as I may consume. Government takeover. We have seen and heard a lot of those two words lately--in the credit markets, the banking sector, the automotive industry, and even the building of schools. Then there's health care-- an industry that assumes one-sixth of America's gross domestic product. We're not talking about health care today, but perhaps we should be. The vote we will take on student lending is a culmination of a plan set in motion more than a decade and a half ago--and one that bears an eerily strong resemblance to the health care debate that rages on today. In 1993, Congress created a so-called government option for college loans. The idea of this Direct Loan Program was to introduce competition and hold down costs. Sound familiar? Just 16 years later, we're about to vote on a plan that would completely and permanently eliminate the private sector's role in originating and raising capital for Federal student loans. In its place will be a one-size-fits-all Federal loan model that requires the U.S. Treasury to directly lend tens of billions of dollars each year--tens of billions of dollars we don't have, and will be forced to borrow. So why is Congress intervening to declare one program the winner? If it's truly about competition, the best program ought to win in the marketplace. In fact, one program has won--the public-private partnership of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which is the choice of three-quarters of colleges and universities today. By eliminating the FFEL program, we will lose the choice, the competition, and innovation of the private sector. That includes everything from technological innovations to loan discounts and borrower services. We will also lose jobs--an estimated 30,000 or more in congressional districts from coast to coast. And what are we getting in return? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle tout this legislation as being fiscally responsible. Respectfully, I beg to differ. The bill is awash with new entitlement programs, including a new early childhood program to develop and fund programs at the State level; a new program to build and renovate schools; and a new program to bolster community colleges and involve the Federal Government in developing online curriculum. Add to these new programs the cost of expanding Pell Grants, funding for Minority Serving Institutions and the Perkins Loan Program, and we have on our hands a massive entitlement spending spree. This spending is allegedly paid for by $87 billion in so-called savings from elimination of the FFEL program. Unfortunately, the numbers just don't add up. CBO tells us the bill will require $13.5 billion in new discretionary spending--real money that simply isn't counted in the mandatory score. CBO also tells us that, using current figures, the Pell Grant expansion will cost $11.4 billion more than scorekeepers originally predicted-- again, a cost not counted for in the ``official'' score. That means this bill will cost closer to $15 billion over the next 10 years--and when market risk is factored in, the cost spikes to nearly $50 billion more. Madam Chair, there's a better way. Later in the debate, I will join the ranking member on the Higher Education Subcommittee, Mr. Guthrie, in offering an amendment to stabilize student lending by extending programs approved on a bipartisan basis last year. With this plan, we can put $13 billion towards deficit reduction and, most importantly, we can convene a nonpartisan commission to study long-term structural changes to our student lending systems. In short, it's a thoughtful, reasonable approach to determine what's best for students, schools, and taxpayers alike. I urge my colleagues to slow down, take a breath, and ask yourself whether another government takeover is what we need right now. I think the answer is a clear ``no.'' I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this rule and the underlying bill. Once again Members on the other side of the aisle are frantically rushing to expand the reach and cost of the Federal Government. Well, if government expansion is what you are looking for, this is the bill for you. H.R. 3221 eliminates the private sector-based Federal Family Education Loan program and shifts every student and every school in America into the Direct Loan Program beginning July 1, 2010, less than 10 months away. It creates or expands numerous entitlement programs, spending tens of billions of dollars on everything from pre-kindergarten programs to school renovation to online course management. Republicans offered more than a dozen amendments to this deeply flawed legislation, amendments that were designed to forestall the damage it is sure to cause, or at the very least, alleviate some of the most egregious spending and policy shifts. Six of those amendments were made in order, less than half. By comparison, Democrats offered a total of 32 amendments: 18 were made in order and another five were incorporated into the manager's amendment. That means in total 72 percent of the amendments offered by Democrats will receive a vote today. A bad process often accompanies a bad bill, and H.R. 3221 is no exception. The Education and Labor Committee has a track record of working across party lines when it comes to education. In recent years, our panel has approved a comprehensive renewal of Federal higher-education programs that incorporated ideas from both Democrats and Republicans. We also acted last year to avert a shutdown of the student loan programs by enacting, with bipartisan support, the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act. Apparently, Democrats have now decided to abandon that effort and pursue a partisan goal they have harbored for more than a decade. Bipartisanship has been cast aside, as this rule reflects. If Democrats wanted to pursue a thoughtful, careful, bipartisan approach to stabilizing the student loan programs and reducing our deficit, they would support the Republican alternative which we plan to offer later in the debate. That's one amendment that was made in order under this rule, and I am certainly glad it was. Our amendment offers a commonsense solution that allows us to slow down and carefully consider what is best for students, schools, and taxpayers. Shifting to 100 percent direct lending will radically alter the way students pay for college. It will cause upheaval at colleges and universities from coast to coast as schools scramble to make the personnel and infrastructure changes necessary to administer a program that is run by the Federal Government. This is a serious issue that deserves a serious debate. And what are we doing about it? We are giving it a few hours this afternoon and tomorrow morning before casting our votes and turning our attention to the next thing. Students deserve better. Families deserve better. The tens of thousands of Americans who stand to lose their jobs deserve better. And taxpayers--who ultimately foot the bill for this measure, this massive expansion of government--deserve better. We have had discussion already this morning about the costs of this bill. And they are certainly confusing and debatable. Proponents say and have said it will save billions and reduce the deficit. Others say it will add tens of billions of dollars to the deficit, as Mr. Dreier was addressing earlier. In fact, I was looking at a story from McClatchy Newspapers coming out of Kansas City, discussing an independent analysis of this program, and it says, ``Changes in the loan program will `save a big chunk of money,' said Marc Goldwein, the policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a watchdog group. Will it be the right amount to offset the new spending? The obvious answer is we don't know.'' He warned that the new system's fiscal outlook would be ``particularly uncertain because it would depend on economy-related factors such as default rates, need-based aid, and other factors.'' In fact, that's why the Congressional Budget Office, in looking at this bill, has amended, although not officially by the rules of this House, its estimate. The letter that Mr. Dreier talked about, addressed to Senator Gregg, they said if we had used market risk-based analysis like we did in the TARP program, this bill wouldn't ``save $87 billion, but some $33 billion less.'' And if we counted the discretionary spending--over $13 billion--it would cost more. And if we looked at the real cost of Pell Grants, it would cost another $11.5 billion more. So I think those that say that this is going to impact the deficit, increase the deficit, have the arguments in their favor. I understand it's debatable. But what is certainly clear, what is not confusing, is that this bill is an expansion of the government, with new programs and new spending. It is a government takeover in an industry. And it will result in a loss of jobs. I wanted to address just a couple of comments that have already been made today in this debate. I felt the pain when my colleague from Colorado talked about the student that was paying some 15.5 percent interest. That's not a FFEL program. That interest rate is capped. We want to make sure that such a program exists and people aren't paying those kind of interest rates. Then, I'm always struck when one of my colleagues says, Well, we're trying to eliminate waste and inefficiency by going to a government program. My colleagues, that just defies history, to find a government program that reduces waste and inefficiency. The stories are rampant. We know in every department huge amounts of waste and inefficiency, whether it's a $500 or $600 hammer in Defense acquisition or money wasted on trailers sitting in fields after hurricane recovery efforts. The Federal Government does not reduce waste and inefficiency. That defies history. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. And then if you are not, you come to Minnesota. So I take the gentleman's point.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Minnesota--our neighbor to the north is, indeed, Canada. And I am very proud to say that Minnesota is a destination State for health care. We have one of the most famous hospitals, clinics in the world, the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. And the thing about Canada is, if they can't get care in Canada, if they get tired of waiting in line, which they do wait in lines, and they are denied care, they come see us in Minnesota. So it's expensive in Canada. The gentleman's point is, it is, indeed, expensive. But I am arguing, worse than that, it doesn't work for many, many of our Canadian neighbors. They cannot afford to wait in those lines.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Well, they may have been together. My father was, as I said, he landed on Normandy, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. But they came back, and they did make sacrifices. But it has been, as the gentleman suggested, the American way for all generations before us that the next generation has been in better shape, if you will, been left in better condition. And it's not that certainly you and I and people in this room don't want things to be worse for our grandchildren, but if we are not careful about how we build this public policy, things are going to be worse. And I would argue, we have not been careful, that we are running a deficit this year alone that was unthinkable 6 months ago, unthinkable. And that national debt I mentioned, unimaginable that we could possibly consider the mess our grandchildren are going to be in.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Well, I take your point. I am, of course, very proud of my parents, part of that Greatest Generation. My father landed in Normandy, fought his way across Europe and part of that world.

Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Absolutely, it does. And speaking of grandchildren, my wife and I are planning to travel down and spend a little time here in a week or two with the grandchildren. I have four wonderful grandchildren. I always say best grandchildren, but then I run up against somebody like the gentleman who actually thinks his grandchildren are the best. We are going down to visit them. I am thinking I should just get down on my knees and thank them, because they are going to pay all these bills, and it's just not right. Those numbers and that chart, I would say to the gentleman, are terrifying. And as I mentioned, when you bring it down much, much closer, 2019 on that chart is way over there towards----