Date: 2004-10-06
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 3 minutes. Let me say at the outset. that the Members on this side of the aisle enthusiastically support this legislation brought to the floor by the chairman of the committee and the chairman of the subcommittee. We only ask. what has been holding it up? Why Were you not here earlier? But you are here now and we will celebrate the fact that you are here now. I must say that we were excited when the gentleman from Maryland and the gentleman from Michigan were able to get an amendment this past September onto the floor of the House so we could get this issue in front of the House. get it out into the daylight and let the Members work the will of the House. something that does not happen too often in this Chamber. The will is quite stifled most of the time. But when this issue is put before the House by the gentleman from Maryland and the gentleman from Michigan . and the House got a chance to look at it. Republicans and Democrats. 6onservatives from the North. East. South. West. around the country. 414 to 3. they said. get rid of this loophole. It is unjustified. it is unconscionable. it is expensive and it is killing the credibility of this program. Tonight. we answer that call by the House of Representatives to get rid of this program. But tragically tonight we only answer a part of that call because we do not deal with those provisions in this program that continue these unconscionable profits at the 9.5 percent loans due to the recycling. We are going to stop this loophole for this year. and we ought to stop the recycling. This is not retroactive. But when you do not stop the recycling. the good purposes for which our colleagues across the aisle are going to put this money to use. and that is to help those teachers. provide loan forgiveness for those teachers in difficult districts who are making the special efforts. some 10.000 additional teachers. who could have access to loan forgiveness. now will not have access to that loan forgiveness. All it would require is to close the loophole. That is what the House voted on when they voted on the KildeeVan Hollen amendment. They voted to close a loophole. not sort of close a loophole. not part way close a loophole. but close a loophole. Maybe only for 1 year now. and that is the best we can do under these circumstances. but the entire .loophole. The difference is billions of dollars. The difference is 10.000 teachers in need of loan forgiveness. That is the choice. I heard this was held up because we had all this power. We would like to use our power now- to tell you and persuade you to join with us and close the entire loophole and get those other 10.000 teachers that areeligible. Power to the people. to the Democrats. because apparently that is why you have not done it now for 2 years. So we want to join with you. We can have a managers amendment tonight to close the loophole like 414 of our colleagues urge. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from Maryland for their creativity and tenacity in getting this before the House of Representatives. getting it into the full. Chamber where the Members on a bipartisan basis have overwhelmingly repudiated this program. I am sorry we cannot go the whole way. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.