Eric Swalwell

Mr. SWALWELL of California

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Dr. Steven D. Chan on his upcoming installation as President of the American College of Dentists. I am honored to recognize Dr. Chan's distinguished career and contributions to the City of Fremont. Dr. Chan is a third-generation Californian, born and raised in Los Angeles. After receiving his undergraduate degree from UCLA, he earned his dental degree from Georgetown University and completed his residency at Martin Luther King/Los Angeles County Hospital. Dr. Chan has had a practice in pediatric dentistry in Fremont for over 30 years. Dr. Chan's professional honors include Fellowships in the Academy of Dentistry International, American Academy of Pediatric Dentists, and the International College of Dentists. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Dr. Chan is also a dedicated leader in the City of Fremont. His leadership in the community includes serving as Chair of Ohlone Community College's Oversight Committee and as Commissioner of the City of Fremont Library Commission. He has been honored as the Citizens for a Better Community's Citizen of the Year, the Asian Business Alliance Business Owner of the Year, and the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Business Leader of the Year. Dr. Chan's exceptional leadership will be well-matched for his new role as the President of the American College of Dentists. He will be the first Asian American to lead this highly respected organization. I know his wife, Sue, and their two sons are very proud of Dr. Chan's achievement. On behalf of his wonderful family, I want to congratulate Dr. Chan on this tremendous honor.

Mr. SWALWELL of California

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and congratulate La Familia Counseling Service on its 40th anniversary. La Familia is based out of Hayward, in my district, and also out of Oakland, California, as well as Livermore. It is an inclusive Latino community-based, multicultural organization committed to strengthening the emotional values of individuals and the preservation of families. Their services help build strong families and communities, fight cycles of poverty, and bridge education and health disparities. For example, they offer important healthcare services, job training, education, and leadership development opportunities for disenfranchised youth living in our neighborhoods. I enjoy working with them. I worked with them when I was a prosecutor in Alameda, and our office works with them today. Appropriately named, the board, volunteers, and staff at La Familia truly view the people they serve as family, and every day they make a difference in someone's life. Their CEO, Aaron Ortiz, and board members Gabriel Arteaga, Rene Macias, Dr. Claudia Aguilar, Mary Mele, Eleanor Dwyer, and Yvette Flores are working very hard. I congratulate them on their 40 years and what is to come to help the families in the East Bay.

Mr. SWALWELL of California

Mr. SWALWELL of California. I am wondering, especially for our pioneers here tonight, if it would surprise you to hear that, since 2004, when you started this effort, student loan debt has increased from $346 million collectively for the country to the $1.2 trillion that it is today. That is an increase of 235 percent. What has happened or what hasn't happened?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. I am glad this reunion happened. You inspire us to continue going forward. I want to ask the gentleman from New York--I have been to Manhattan. It reminds me a lot--Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens and Harlem-- reminds me a lot of what we see in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, just the young entrepreneurial minds. But when we go to these startup spaces or these incubator hubs, I constantly hear how much student loan debt affects their ability to invest in themselves and their businesses, and we are finding that our generation is the least entrepreneurial generation America has ever known at our time. I am wondering if you have heard stories about that and how it is limiting investment.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Congressman Veasey, part of what the Future Forum has tried to express across the country to young people has been, first, our members, we understand you, we hear you, because we know the struggle you have gone through. Personally, I have over $100,000 today in student loan debt. Half of my college was paid through an athletic scholarship, and I still had that much student loan debt that I racked up because of tuition going up every single year. Could you tell us just a little bit about your personal story or those of any family members or friends and how you have personally seen this debt affecting people.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Another Floridian, too.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to kick off the Future Forum Special Order hour. Today we will be bringing attention, once again, to the issue of college affordability and student loan debt. We also have a few surprises in store today, as I will be joined by my Future Forum colleagues. I first want to report that just earlier this week, on Monday, the Future Forum, which is a group of about 16 to 17 of the youngest members in our caucus, went out to Seattle. Congressman Kilmer, who represents the Seattle area, was joined by myself and Ruben Gallego of the Phoenix, Arizona, area. We went across the Seattle area. We talked to college students, community college students, college graduates, a millennial workforce, and also folks in the tech sector in Seattle. We went to the University of Washington Tacoma and met with veterans. We went to the University of Puget Sound and talked to students. We went to an SEIU training center and talked to the next generation of their workforce. We were also able to go to Amazon. We went to amazon.com and had a town hall there with their millennial workforce, and we were able to listen to them and their concerns about the future. We heard a common thread through all of these diverse groups, America's largest generation, millennials, 80 million people. They are concerned about their future. They are concerned about their ability to afford and have access to go to college. They are concerned about how much it is going to cost them when they get out and the student loan debt that they are going to be burdened with. It was another successful Future Forum trip. It was the eighth one we have taken this year, ranging from New York, Boston, New Hampshire, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, and now Seattle. I encourage anyone watching to engage with us on Twitter. I will be a part of the conversation. I will read and respond to any questions as we go along. First, today I am joined by a colleague of mine, a Future Forum member from the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Congressman Marc Veasey. Congressman, we are encouraging a conversation around these issues at #futureforum. I have been to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have seen the way you engage with young people in your district. I want to know just what are you hearing out there about your constituents and their ability to go to college, your constituents and their ability to pay for college? And, once they get out, how is student loan debt affecting their opportunities?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Reclaiming my time, I don't know if either Mr. Ryan or Mr. Jeffries has heard constituent casework like this, but we have constituents in our district who are having their Social Security checks garnished because of student loan debt. So I yield to Mr. Ryan or Mr. Jeffries, if you heard about this multigenerational challenge.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for participating in this. I invite anyone at home to follow along, follow the conversation at #futureforum. Engage with these Members and others. I yield to the gentleman from New York. Any parting thoughts on what we can do as a Congress to unite and solve this problem?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. So, in your district, say Youngstown, or my district, Cal State, East Bay, what I have found talking to young people, when we talk about this renewable economy and young people hear that, we are actually in this Congress, under Republican leadership slashing the amount of money we invest in renewables and increasing the amount that we spend on fossil fuels, I find that young people, their reaction is: Wait. What? You guys, the rest of the world is going forward in this renewable economy. Germany has 30 percent of its energy from renewables, and the United States is still stuck around 10 to 11 percent? I found it generationally, Republicans and Democrats, millennials, they don't understand why we are kind of stuck in the mud on this issue. I don't know what you have heard.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. We will talk. We will send over some ideas, and we will take some of yours.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, that is right. We were sent here to do our job, to be problem solvers and really be voices, I think, for all generations of Americans, but especially this generation which is the largest generation America has ever known. It is the most diverse generation America has ever known, and I think it is one of the most aspirational generations America has ever known. They are waiting for anybody in this body to help them get out of this financial quicksand and start being able to be empowered and really realize their own American Dream. So I thank the gentlemen for participating today. I thank our pioneers from the 30-Somethings and invite them to come back for a 10- year reunion. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. I have the privilege of having both of you on the floor now, and you can see it is the 10-year reunion of the 30-Somethings. The two of you really charted the path forward for us to do this as the Future Forum. We are now joined by the gentlewoman from Florida, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I went back and I saw many of the different, inventive, and creative ways that you guys engaged our young people. I was hoping you could just talk about back then, because some of the issues you talked about--rising gas prices at the time, the war in Iraq, and privatization of Social Security--you brought attention on this House floor of these issues to the next generation. Maybe you could just talk about how you did that and then how we can do that today.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Congressman Ryan, one of my favorite things to do in the spirit of what you and Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz did is you went out and engaged people in new, inventive ways. We do what is called a word cloud. We go to these townhalls, and they can text in answers to questions we pose. One that we often ask them is: What would you spend your money on if you had more money at the end of the month that wasn't going to student loans? You can see in the word cloud here, which was taken from a recent event, it ranges from rent, house, buy a house, groceries, mortgage, and savings. Have you heard this out in Ohio?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Is that where Silicon Alley is?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Millennials are very collaborative. They are, I would believe, a problem-solving generation. What is so frustrating when we talk to them at college campuses or at their work sites is they ask, ``Well, what are you doing about it?'' And I believe my colleagues here would be happy, thrilled, to work with our colleagues across the aisle on solutions on this. But I am just curious. Do you know how many bills we voted on to address student loan debt this Congress? Zero. Zero bills. At the end of the day, it is not just the least entrepreneurial. We are the least home owning. We are more likely to delay starting a family by about 5 years. So everything that the generation before us had, we are delaying: buying a home, starting a family, starting a business. As the gentleman from New York pointed out, it is affecting the economy.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. On an issue you would never imagine to be partisan.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Well, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for joining us. I hope to see her back.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Here on the floor any Californian would be nervous when he or she is outnumbered by Floridians. We are joined by the gentleman from Florida who represents West Palm Beach, Jupiter/Martin County area. What are you hearing in your district about student loan debt?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if the gentleman from New York heard, but in 2012, the New York Fed reported that for the first time in a decade, 30-year-old student borrowers were less likely to take out a home mortgage than other young people. Are you seeing in the New York area or hearing from your constituents about how student loan debt is affecting their ability to buy a house? I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. We talk a lot about the next generation, and Congressman Ryan and I were talking about how this affects millennials--and I invite my colleague from New York (Mr. Jeffries) to take the other podium. I don't know if you have heard this in your district, but this issue of college access and affordability is actually a family matter. We just got a tweet from @SKAU61, and she said that she wants to get a BA in accounting, and at 53 she can't afford to do it. So we are hearing that it is multigenerational, this access.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. SWALWELL of California. What colleges do you have in your district?

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Congressman Murphy, your district, the State of Florida, has a lot of veterans. People always ask: What is the biggest surprise you have found since going to Congress? I don't know if you guys have had that question posed to you. For me, the biggest surprise I have found since coming to Congress is just how poorly our veterans have been treated. Something that is even more surprising, which I found doing these Future Forum tours--I don't know if you have heard about this--but a GI Bill doesn't even cover the full cost of college anymore. So the veterans who have served our country, fought abroad, risked their lives, saw their friends and sometimes family members killed, when they come back home, the GI Bill can't even get them all the way through college. That is how expensive college has become, and we can't even take care of our veterans. So when you talk about Pell grants, I am wondering if you have talked to veterans and heard about the gaps in funding that they are experiencing as they try and advance their skills when they get back home. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. SWALWELL of California

Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.