- GOP Reps. Jim Banks and Bob Good introduced a bill to block another student-loan payment pause.
- They wrote that the Education Secretary cannot continue linking further debt relief to COVID-19.
- The GOP has criticized Democrats who are calling on Biden to extend the pause or cancel student debt.
As Democrats' calls for President Joe Biden to extend the pause on student-loan payments beyond May 1 get louder, a pair of Republican lawmakers want to ensure that won't happen.
On Friday, Indiana Rep. Jim Banks and Virginia Rep. Bob Good introduced legislation, coined the "Federal Student Loan Integrity Act," that would "prevent further abuse" of the Education Secretary's authority to keep extending the pause on student-loan payments in connection with the pandemic, according to the bill.
As Insider previously reported, the HEROES Act of 2003 allows the Secretary of Education to waive or modify any provision of Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 "as may be necessary to ensure that affected individuals are not placed in a worse position financially" than before a national emergency, such as the pandemic. That's the authority that former-President Donald Trump used to pause student-loan payments in 2020, and Biden used to extend the pause three times since taking office. The two Republican congressmen don't want Biden to use that authority for a fourth time.
"Republicans need to use their oversight power to ensure that this administration stops using COVID as a never-ending excuse to expand its power, waste taxpayer dollars and further fuel inflation," Banks told Politico in a statement.
Banks and Good did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Democratic lawmakers say that 43 million federal student-loan borrowers still need more relief
The pause on student-loan payments, with waived interest, has been in effect since March 2020, and Biden recently extended that pause a third time, through May 1. But many Democratic lawmakers have argued that the 43 million federal borrowers still need more relief and have called on the president to either extend the pause yet again, or cancel student debt broadly before those borrowers have to enter repayment.
Republicans like Banks and Good have criticized the idea of further relief. In January, top Republican on the House education committee Virginia Foxx called broad student-loan forgiveness "a massive mistake," followed by all GOP members of the committee later slamming broad relief as "reckless" and "short-sighted."
They cited the $150 billion cost to taxpayers that accompanied Biden's additional extension of the payment pause, and they said further relief would only add to inflation. But advocates argue that rising inflation in the country necessitates even more relief. A recent survey from the Student Debt Crisis Center found 92% of fully-employed borrowers are worried about affording their loan payments alongside rising inflation.
"Our findings show that the ongoing pandemic combined with unprecedented inflation are huge obstacles for borrowers who are, by and large, not ready to resume payments, struggling to afford basic needs, and confused about their options moving forward," Natalia Abrams, executive director of the center, said in a statement.
And despite GOP concerns on the economic impact of student-loan relief, left-leaning experts previously told Insider the US can afford to lose monthly student-loan payments. Marshall Steinbaum, senior fellow at the Jain Family Institute and economics professor at the University of Utah, previously told Insider that canceling student debt would mean that the "federal government is choosing not to collect payments from debtors on the debt that's already issued," and the economy has been "more than fine" over the past two years when the government was doing just that.
Still, it's unclear how Biden will choose to tackle the $1.7 trillion student debt load, but there are signs more relief may be coming. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain recently said that Biden will either extend the payment pause again, or decide what he can do via executive action with student debt before May.