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Local U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell continues to set his sights on student loan debt, spending a week earlier this summer reintroducing four bills designed to tackle different aspects of what the Dublin Democrat refers to as “a $1.3 trillion crisis” impacting the lives of millions of Americans.
The pieces of proposed legislation, which failed to advance in Congress last term, focus on issues related to the repayment process for federal student loans, debt forgiveness for public servants and tax deduction guidelines for loan interest.
“Every year, students across the nation graduate from college eager to enter the workforce and continue their journey toward the American dream, but within months they face sticker shock — a debilitating student loan payment,” Swalwell, whose district includes Pleasanton, said in a statement.
“The cost of student debt is preventing young people from making major life decisions, like buying a home, starting a business, or starting a family, and it is weighing down their parents and families likewise,” he continued, adding:
“We must do what we can to help student loan borrowers better manage and repay their loans, which will in turn strengthen our economy and secure a brighter future for generations to come.”
Know Your Repayment Options Act
Swalwell introduced the bills on consecutive days starting on June 20 as part of his student debt week, with the first being the “Know Your Repayment Options Act.”
The proposed legislation would require the U.S. Department of Education to inform every federal student loan borrower annually about all of their repayment options.
It would require the yearly update to tell borrowers about their average anticipated monthly payment amount, yearly payment amount, lifetime payment amount, number of months remaining to pay off loans and amount that would be forgiven under all possible repayment plans. The report would also give borrowers instructions on how to switch repayment plans if they want.
Swalwell said he hopes the changes under the legislation would help make it easier for federal borrowers to choose the individualized repayment plan that works best for them.
Fairness in Forgiveness Act
Next up for the local congressman was introducing a bill that would have particular impacts close to home.
The “Fairness in Forgiveness Act” would extend loan forgiveness opportunities — now available to government and certain nonprofit employees — to workers at privately operated U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore and Sandia in the Tri-Valley.
The bill would make all lab staff members eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLFP), which allows people to seek forgiveness of federal student loans for those who work at least 10 years in public service.
Currently, some national labs are operated by for-profit companies or nonprofit organizations not guaranteed under Section 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code, so employees there can’t participate in the forgiveness program.
“Expanding PSLFP eligibility to staff at these particular DOE national labs helps them better manage their loans and will allow us to recruit and retain scientists, engineers, computer experts and others in similar professions willing to devote their careers to the public good,” Swalwell said.
Strengthening Loan Forgiveness for Public Servants Act
Swalwell followed with another bill seeking to expand options for working public servants under the PSLFP.
The federal program offers student loan forgiveness to teachers, police officers, public health workers and other public servants, allowing those qualified borrowers who make full, scheduled monthly payments for 10 years while employed full-time in eligible public service positions to have their remaining Federal Direct Loan balance canceled.
The new proposal would allow eligible public employees with outstanding Federal Direct Loan debt to apply to have their student loans deferred while they work in public service as well as have a percentage of their federal loan debt canceled for every two years of service up to a decade.
“Young people shouldn’t be dissuaded from pursuing a career in public service due to a looming, debilitating monthly student loan payment,” Swalwell said, adding that his bill would do more “to support graduates who serve their communities while helping to lighten the load of student debt along the way.”
Student Loan Interest Deduction Act
The final bill, introduced last term by former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) but now brought forward by Swalwell, seeks to double tax deductions for student loan interest and eliminate some income phase-outs of deductions.
Shortened to the “SLID Act,” the legislation would increase the maximum tax deduction for interest paid on any qualified education loan from $2,500 to $5,000 for individuals ($10,000 for joint filers) as well as eliminate the deduction’s current income-based phase-outs of $65,000 for individuals ($130,000 for joint filers).
“The current student loan interest tax deduction is a well-intentioned benefit, but it doesn’t do enough for those who live in high-cost regions, like the Bay Area,” Swalwell said. “This legislation lifts some of that weight and puts more money in more pockets to help people start a family, buy a home, and turn a good idea into a business.”
Each of Swalwell’s four new bills was also introduced in the House of Representatives last term but died in committee without hearings.
Is this Swalwell program considering how much of that loan has already received tax credit?
Any employee with a student loan should not be allowed to double dip, receive pension credits while having his loan forgiven.
All pension credits of an employee should go to paying down the balance of the student loan.
When the loan is paid in full, then the employee can receive full pension credit as that employee earns them.
If union dues are collected from an employee with a student loan balance, then a like amount must also be collected from that employee and applied to that employees student loan debt.
There are many creative ways for a student loan to be repaid. It should not be forgiven. Employee with student loan debt must be forced to be accountable for it.
I have 2 Alameda County born grandsons who are struggling, working, and attending in pieces. Being white males, the Ca State system openly discriminates against their kind. Lots of programs for all others, all levels, all races, from all places.
Michael, I complement you on your letter in the Times, last week.
As far a Pelosi’s Puppet, he is not the same guy as when he started. Many Repubs voted to get him started…NOT this time. He is everywhere Pelosi tells him to go and what campaign message she wants him to deliver to his very Dem team….time marches on. Since US voters said they don’t like
Bay Area values in the other 49, he wants to ‘present’ himself differently, and Pelosi will pull the puppet strings.
One creative way would be to do what we did years ago— scrimp and save, live within a budget, pay off that loan, get a 2nd part time job if you have too and don’t take my taxpayer money to pay off your loan, it’s a tough world out there. why is Swalwell favoring certain groups and not all outstanding student loans if he is going to pick my pocket I want it to be for all student loans not just for his “favorites”!
Why don’t we pay for this by taxing campaign funds……seems like there is a significant amount of money being generated within campaign funds, I’m sure a small tax from public servants to encourage continuity in talent pool to succeed them is a good investment
….and we can make it fair by graduating the tax by aggregate fund(s) size
It is WAY beyond a stretch to call government workers “public servants”. They have some of the most lucrative salaries, benefits, and pensions.
This bailout looks similar to the loan bailout for people who bought homes they could not afford and then rely on the taxpayers to bail them out. At the same time, I followed the rules and only borrowed what I could afford. I guess I am a sucker for not getting myself in over my head.
The problem is not the loan program and repayments. The problem is the cost of higher education. You have to solve that problem. No different than the cost of medicine. Going after insurance is just making if more expensive for everybody. Need to go after the costs.
@Taxpayer :”Being white males, the Ca State system openly discriminates against their kind. Lots of programs for all others, all levels, all races, from all places.”
That’s nonsense and you know it. Not aware of any affirmative action programs in the California university system for Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Indians. Maybe you should be more careful in your writing and your blaming all your woes on special programs for “all others”.
I agree with taxpayer, in that foreign students receive preference over California state resident students for enrollment in UC Berkeley!
@Michael
Taxpayer was not talking about foreign versus California resident admissions at California universities. That’s a completely different subject. He specifically brought up the issue of race in a bigoted manner by bemoaning about his “white male” grandsons and “programs for all others” (which I pointed out was false). What he wrote was distasteful and you just blindly jumped onto his bandwagon.
Sam,
Read my comment carefully:
I agree with taxpayer, “in that” foreign students receive preference over California state resident students.
Sam, Well known and published UCs admit many foreign and out-of-state to collect HIGHER tuition. They also admit rich white males to pay FULL tuition. They ADMIT all other races and countries for diversity. But local born, white, middle-class males….no, seats are full… of all those others ! Now you want to ‘target’ more selected ‘groups’. NO WAY ! Govt
needs to crack down on US discrimination as it is now. Brown is even making
us PAY for kids of illegal parents who brought their kids here.
@Michael
No, Michael. Major Fail. You’re the one who did not read a post carefully. His post says what it says.
No Sam. Too bad if you thought my comments distasteful. I’ve been paying my CA taxes for 45 years, paying for all those others. UCs openly discriminate. That is what calculated ‘targeting’ with numbers by states, countries, races, etc. That is what I call distasteful
Back to Eric. I’m not for any of your plan. I do like that you recognized and called out high-cost CA.
I am for income taxes by ZIP code. Tulsa and Topeka salaries and COL are very different than Bay Area and Boston. Equal houses would be $300,000. in Tulsa and Topeka and $1mil in Bay Area. Except, recently a report showed a $100k earner in San Fran is eligible for subsidized home in our area, while a $100 earner in Tulsa would have a deluxe home, and likely big shot in town. 2 different worlds, but our FED income tax charts treat both as equals. Only Zip code chart would be a reasonably fair COL equalizer chart. We use to have COL tax charts by Counties !!
Swalwell knows this is a great way to sway college kids to the Democrat party, just as insuring the Hispanics that they will fight for open borders, and Sanctuary Cities and States. Give-away programs are a great marketing tool to sign up future Democrats. Nothing is free, this specific give-away is going to cost us. And I already paid in full for both my kids college education.
This program will cost taxpayers money. If Eric really feels this is a serious issue, then he should propose paying for it out of the legislature’s budget. If they are not willing to pay for it then it is probably not that important. Things are always important when it is other people’s money.
Same ol’, same ol’. DEMs solution to everything is to tax us to death. Nobody need be accountable or responsible for their actions and decisions. Let the taxpayer bail everyone out. (illegals, foreigners, everyone)
Swalwell and the Democratic cabal must go!
Oh, the spin on this one… Swalwell considers himself a Public Servant and claims to owe 170K in student loans. His pursuit is for himself.
Swalwell and his “string pullers” need to board that train to nowhere along with Gov. Moonbeam and pull out of this station ( California), maybe move to Nevada and open some marijuana dispensaries and quit trying to get high on my paycheck.
Wow. This is a really policy oriented discussion. Sheesh. Back to student loans, which is what this article was actually about. The Federal Government guarantees these loans, so the banks are taking zero risk. Yet the interest rates are higher than conventional loans, the borrower can never refinance when interest rates go down, and it’s the only kind of debt that even declaring bankruptcy can’t get you out of. How about we start by fixing those problems. If my son could have refinanced his 6.8% interest rates after he graduated when car loans and mortgage rates were around 2%, he’d be done paying his loans off by now. That and crack down hard on the predatory private trade school that make big promises just to get the loan money, then don’t deliver on the training, skills, and jobs leaving young people deep in debt with high-interest loans and nothing to show from it.
OK, now you can all go back to whining about how hard it is to be white and how trying to help ordinary folks with student loans is somehow a Pelosi plot. I just want my representative to work his but off to fix what’s broken. I’m not sure forgiveness is the answer — although if a student signs up for a stint in the military or to work as a teacher in a struggling inner city of rural school, I have no problem with letting their service count toward paying back their loans.
Let’s get together and vote Swallwel out of office! This guy is a democratic hack and puppet of Pelosi. Just wants to tax us and now load us up to pay the loans of the idiots who couldn’t budget or choose a major that paid a descent wage that would enable them to pay off a loan. They took out the loans, now they are responsible to pay them back. What message does it send if we don’t hold people accountable?
This is an old establishment politician trick. Here’s how the scam goes.
Politician says, “Vote for me and I’ll fight for the government to pay everyone in our district $1 million dollars.”
Politician is elected and goes off to Washington where they submit a bill to pay everyone in the district $1 million dollars. Of course, the bill never had a chance of being passed or signed into law.
Politician then goes back the district and says, “I kept my promise and I submitted the bill but THOSE other folks are mean (or insert your divisive reason of choice) and don’t like you and blocked this bill. However, I’ll always fight for you and will not give up on getting each of you the $1 million dollars.”
If Eric Swalwell couldn’t get these bills passed the first time; why is he reintroducing the EXACT SAME BILLS with the same wording and everything???! Doesn’t seem very smart or sincere.
District 15 is highly educated and knows disingenuous behavior. These four bills are how politicians pad their statistics to give the impression that they’re working on legislation for their district. Not fooled.
How about putting a limit on student loans. Remove the bankruptcy exemption so lenders have some risk in making the loans.
Put some performance requirements on the colleges. Anyone who borrows money has responsibility.
Eliminate government guarantee boy loans.
nothing new here to see – the first two bills listed in this article are no different than whats done now. our loans funded through Sallie Mae and Dept of Ed provide online and in statement mailers each month to us provide all the info he listed the new bill would require – no improvements here – just more paperwork and administrative costs to the lender that gets passed on to the borrower. none of the steps and info listed helps me pay down the loans – and ive been making all my payments because i signed a promissory note which by the way also listed the same info swallwell says he is working to include in the first bill – nothing new or to help pay down debt. the second bill is a clear incentive to encourage more graduates to go into government work – which leads to dependency on the govt and higher expenses to tax payers to fund thise jobs and expensive pensions – not nearly as rich as the one i hope to get some day from my corporate career. the third bill with more tax credit toward interest is a definite change not currently in existence. HOWEVER none of these bills solve the root cause of the high amount of college loan debt which is as another neighbor said was the high cost of education! and students have little choice because employers want college grads, the colleges know this and know they will always get students to pay the ridiculous tuition amounts because the students know they have to have a 4-year degree to get a basic miserable entry-level job on a 800 line. and so as long as the govt makes loans readily available colleges can continue to charge more and more because they know their supply of students will never end. a catch-22 sadly. the winners? the college administrators and professors and the govt getting more govt and union workers aka drones.
More government bloat. Pandering to public employee unions. Why not treat public/private employees the same? The interest rate is what . . . 7.6%? Outrageous. Another so called public servent pandering to the union voting base.
Why should ANY government employee receive forgiveness of this debt? What makes them so special?
As a government employee they already receive many job benefits generally not available to employees of private companies (e.g., pensions rather than 401k, more generous vacation programs, more generous healthcare benefits, higher retention prospects, etc.).
I see no need to continue, let alone expand this favoritism toward any government employee.
My Story:
I borrowed a total of 25,000 and graduated in 1999
I borrowed 20,000 for a Parent Plus Loan in 2004
I have paid on average 200-400/month since 1999 for a total of ~50,000 paid back
I now OWE 117,00, this is a federal Government Loan
Never paid late; always on time, think this is fair?
This is a major rip off; who’s getting fleeced here?
Dena:
“Who’s getting fleeced here”?
You are!
You and your parents entered into this loan agreement with open minds I assume.
Was fortunate to get my loan undergrad at 0.9%. Not so fortunate with my graduate degree loan at 7%. I paid off both after 20yrs, but knocked out the graduate loan much faster. Do I get a refund (ha!) If this passes?
Sam, I thought of you over the weekend, while listening to longtime radio host on finances!! I was right about locally born, white males getting the shaft, while their taxpayer/parents are made to pay tuition for others, from distant elsewheres, filling our seats. Taking up the seats & sections, is one thing, taxpayer parents being made to pay bills of thos3 others is downright abuse & theft.
This national financial host brought up CA college discrimination of long time state taxpayers. (unfortunately not all ‘residents’ are ‘taxpayers).
He is from another state. He brought up the subject that Ca resident taxpayers should be given admission PRIORITY !!
first we must fire the idiot crooks that call themselves ‘regents’. Damn these regents and their own personal THEFTS with extraordinary personal abuses they have committed against CA taxpayers. Between public unions corrupting our education, and regents destroying our Cal system for taxpayer residents, they should all be in jail for their crimes & abuses against us.