Tennessee U.S. Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04) introduced legislation that aims to block the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan.
The legislation, as of press time, was not available on the Congress.gov website.
DesJarlais went on Fox Business to discuss the bill.
“There’s a lot of people out there that took out loans and, you know, maybe didn’t get their dream job, but don’t pay them back,” DesJarlais said, explaining his position. “So to somehow decide that they no longer need to have skin in the game, it kind of disincentivizes people from succeeding, in my opinion.”
DesJarlais argues that student loan forgiveness enables irresponsible borrows but adds a burden to responsible taxpayers. He believes that forgiveness does not stimulate the economy.
“It may help those people who are irresponsible, but the ones that are out there working and paying taxes — now they’re going to be saddled with the burden of, if you want to call these other people’s mistakes or borrowed money management,” he said.
The U.S. representative points out that there are existing programs for people looking to better themselves to take advantage of, rather than encouraging the elimination of debt for irresponsible borrowers.
“There’s an awful lot of scholarship programs out there are going to have one now that you can actually go to college and trade schools for free … There can be maybe some incentive programs where you work off the debt or some of those within the government right now,” he continued. “But just erasing somebody that because they weren’t able to handle the responsibility they took on, I think is certainly the wrong approach,” said the member of Congress.
DesJarlais additionally told Fox Business that the bill seeks to block on blanket student loan forgiveness, not other programs.
According to Fox Business, “The bill’s most aggressive provision aims to limit the secretaries of Education and Treasury, as well as the Attorney General, from taking any action toward forgiving student loan debt, except those carried out as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965.”
DesJarlais said in a tweet on Sunday, “TOMORROW I will introduce a bill to halt any effort by the Biden administration to forgive federal student loans.”
A similar measure has been put forward in the United States Senate.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
Photo “Scott DesJarlais” by U.S. House of Representatives. Background Photo “Joe Biden” by The White House.
