House GOP Proposes Blocking Student-Debt Relief, Ending Payment Pause

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US President Joe Biden. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Republicans on the House budget committee put out a list of proposed spending cuts they would support in a debt limit deal.

It included blocking student-debt relief, ending the payment pause, and cutting "woke-waste."

It also noted that it will not touch Medicare and Social Security after Biden called out the GOP for previously wanting to cut the programs.

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House Republicans just put out a range of ideas to cut spending for a debt limit deal.

On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Budget Committee put forth a list of ten major areas in which they would support cutting spending to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling before the government defaults. Since Republicans assumed a slim majority over the House, they have expressed their intent to use the debt limit as a bargaining chip to achieve their own priorities — particularly with spending cuts — and their budget committee has some areas it wouldn't mind disinvesting in.

"We must 'reverse the curse' of deepening deficits and debt by addressing the underlying reason that we are having to raise the debt ceiling to begin with: uncontrolled federal spending," the committee wrote in its press release.

One area for proposed spending cuts focused on President Joe Biden's "student loan bailouts" — the press release said that ending the student-loan payment pause would save $25 billion, and "prohibiting" his broad plan to cancel student debt would save $379 billion.

Republican lawmakers have strongly opposed broad student-loan forgiveness — even before Biden announced his plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers at the end of August. The plan is currently on pause due to two conservative-backed lawsuits seeking to permanently block the relief, and as the cases head to the Supreme Court on February 28, Republicans have argued the plan is illegal and should get struck down.

Here are other estimates from the committee on areas they would support cutting:

Recapturing unspent pandemic money: $100 billion

Placing work requirements on welfare programs like SNAP: "tens of billions" of dollars

Reducing fraud by requiring Social Security numbers for the child tax credit and income verification for SNAP: $70 billion

Capping Obamacare subsidies at 400% of the poverty line: $65 billion

Canceling Environmental Protection Agency programs: $60 billion

Rescinding spending on green vehicles: $13 billion

Ending legal assistance for migrants: $10 million

Ending "improper payments" made by federal agencies: $281 billion

Stopping "woke-waste" projects focused on gender inclusivity: $6.6 million.

Some Republican lawmakers have also previously introduced legislation to end the student-loan payment pause and block Biden from canceling any student debt, though none of those bills even made it to a vote in either chamber of Congress.

When it comes to Medicare and Social Security, which have been a point of contention in the debt ceiling negotiations, the committee wrote that the two programs "are earned benefit programs that must be saved and strengthened."

"Democrats' should stop preying on the fears of seniors by accusing Republicans of cutting Social Security and Medicare and, instead, work with us on bipartisan solutions to address their insolvency," it wrote.

However, in recent months, some Republican lawmakers explicitly called out Medicare and Social Security as potential programs to cut spending, and Sen. Rick Scott even called for all federal laws to sunset within five years — including Medicare and Social Security — unless Congress voted to explicitly renew them.

Although Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said cuts to the two programs are "off the table," Biden has continued to stress the danger of cutting Medicare and Social Security, saying during a Thursday speech that "I know that a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare.

"Well, let me say this," Biden said. "If that's your dream, I'm your nightmare."