Op-Ed: Will Lawler Defend Student Debt Relief?

By Jared R. Francis

Congressman Mike Lawler has some big decisions to make in the next few months. 

In addition to mulling a potential gubernatorial run, Rep. Lawler will play a key role in negotiations over the upcoming budget and spending bills. 

To maintain his moderate image, he’ll need to prove he can stand up to his party’s unwavering commitment to cutting taxes on the wealthy at the expense of fiscal responsibility and the best interests of his constituents. 

A key aspect of President Trump’s remake of the GOP was supposed to be abandoning the party’s ongoing attempts to cut Medicare and Social Security. However, this commitment has always been in tension with their desire to continually slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. 

In 2017, Republicans threaded this needle by passing a deficit-financed tax bill. At the time, inflation and interest rates were low, and the economy was still recovering from the Great Recession, so the rationale for this approach had some logic to it. 

Today’s economy is different, yet Republicans still prioritize tax cuts without a plan to pay for them.  

Don’t be fooled by the actions of Elon Musk and his team at DOGE – the real drivers of federal spending are our military, health care, and retirement programs, and neither political party has an appetite for major reforms in these areas.

This brings us back to Rep. Lawler and his colleagues in the House. 

Much attention has been paid to the cap on SALT – a result of the 2017 tax cut bill – that has negatively impacted New Yorkers. New York Congressional Republicans failed to get their GOP colleagues on board with providing relief to New Yorkers, and it remains to be seen if they’ll be successful in this round of negotiations. 

Now, Republicans are targeting domestic programs to offset tax cuts, many of which will harm Lawler’s constituents. 

A recent memo from the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee identified the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF) as a target for dramatic cuts in their upcoming budget.

Established during the Bush administration, PSLF incentivizes Americans to pursue public service careers by offering student loan forgiveness after ten years of payments. 

Currently, teachers, law enforcement officers, health care professionals, and other public servants are eligible to receive student loan forgiveness after making ten years of payments, as long as they remain committed to careers in public service. 

Many of these jobs require advanced education, and with today’s affordability crisis, PSLF is essential to keeping talented professionals in public service instead of losing them to more lucrative private sector jobs.

The proposed cuts to the PSLF program would be a disaster for communities like mine, in Yorktown, where I live.

More than 30 percent of Yorktown residents work in education, health care, or public safety, according to recent data.

In 2023, New Yorkers were overrepresented among PSLF recipients relative to national trends. 

Meanwhile, other data suggest that school districts, health care facilities, and other public service agencies are struggling to attract and retain talent. An essential part of making our communities and government work is not just ensuring that they operate efficiently but also ensuring that the nurse who sees your sick mom is experienced, that the people who keep us safe are able to provide for their families, and that our teachers can afford to live in the communities they serve.

Newly-confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon pledged to continue implementing PSLF as is because “it’s the law,” but her statements should give little comfort to public servants, as Congressional Republicans have made it clear they intend to change the law as part of their efforts to offset the costs of cutting taxes on wealthy Americans. 

I reached out to Rep. Lawler’s office to see if he would fight to protect the PSLF program. Unfortunately, the letter I received from his office made no mention of PSLF or how the proposed cuts to the program would impact his constituents. 

Rep. Lawler’s eyes may be turning towards Albany, but first, he must prove he can stand up for the communities in his district.

Yorktown’s Jared R. Francis is a district administrator for a school network in New York City and a Congressional District 17 constituent.