To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt qualified student loan bonds from the volume cap and the alternative minimum tax.
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Rep. Feenstra, Randy [R-IA-4]
ID: F000446
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Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed Representative Feenstra and his cohorts in Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's ostensible purpose is to exempt qualified student loan bonds from the volume cap and alternative minimum tax (AMT). How noble! They're trying to "help" students by making it easier for lenders to issue bonds that fund student loans. Cue the violins.
In reality, this bill is a thinly veiled attempt to line the pockets of lenders and investors while pretending to address the student loan crisis. It's a classic case of "do no harm, but make sure our donors are happy."
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends sections 146(g) and 57(a)(5)(C) of the Internal Revenue Code to exempt qualified student loan bonds from the volume cap and AMT. This means lenders can issue more bonds without worrying about hitting the volume cap, and investors won't have to pay AMT on their bond income.
Oh, and there's a special rule for pooled financing bond rules because, you know, students are just too complicated to include in the definition of "ultimate borrower." Give me a break. This is just a way to further obfuscate the already Byzantine world of tax law.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects will benefit from this bill:
1. Lenders and investors who issue and buy student loan bonds. 2. Representative Feenstra's donors, who likely include lenders and financial institutions. 3. Students... just kidding! They'll still be saddled with crippling debt, but hey, at least the lenders will make more money.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It does nothing to address the root causes of the student loan crisis, such as skyrocketing tuition costs and stagnant wages. Instead, it provides a temporary fix that benefits lenders and investors at the expense of taxpayers.
By exempting qualified student loan bonds from the volume cap and AMT, this bill will likely lead to:
1. Increased borrowing costs for students, as lenders take advantage of the new rules to issue more bonds. 2. Reduced tax revenue for the government, which will have to be made up by increasing taxes on other sources or cutting spending elsewhere. 3. Further entrenchment of the student loan industrial complex, making it even harder for students to escape the debt trap.
In conclusion, HR 2660 is a cynical attempt to perpetuate the status quo while pretending to help students. It's a legislative placebo, designed to make politicians look good without actually addressing the problem. Bravo, Representative Feenstra! You've managed to create a bill that's both useless and harmful. That takes skill.
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Rep. Feenstra, Randy [R-IA-4]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 341 — Department of Education market prices and signals to influence educational borrowing, introducing consumer-driven accountability into higher education. Pell grants should retain their current voucher-like structure. If Congress is unwilling to reform federal student aid, then the next Adminis- tration should consider the following reforms: l Switch to fair-value accounting from FCRA accounting, and l Consolidate all federal loan programs into one new program that 1. Utilizes income-driven repayment, 2. Includes no interest rate subsidies or loan forgiveness, 3. Includes annual and aggregate limits on borrowing, and 4. Requires “skin in the game” from colleges to help hold them accountable for loan repayment. The Biden Administration has mercilessly pillaged the student loan portfolio for crass political purposes without regard to the needs of current taxpayers or future students. This must never happen again. l As detailed in Section III, the next Administration should work with Congress to spin off federal student aid into a new government corporation with professional governance and management. NEW POLICY PRIORITIES FOR 2025 AND BEYOND New Legislation That Should Be Prioritized For nearly 250 years, Congress has incorporated public and private institutions, including banks, the District of Columbia’s city government, and other organiza- tions that federal officials deem to be conducting operations in the public interest. Such charters offer a certain status to organizations, often viewed as a “seal of approval” according to one Congressional Research Service report, which can help these organizations in their fundraising and other advocacy efforts. When the nation’s largest teacher association, the National Education Associ- ation (NEA), cites its federal charter, it lends the NEA a level of significance and suggests an effectiveness that is not supported by evidence. In fact, the NEA and the nation’s other large teacher union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT),
Introduction
— 341 — Department of Education market prices and signals to influence educational borrowing, introducing consumer-driven accountability into higher education. Pell grants should retain their current voucher-like structure. If Congress is unwilling to reform federal student aid, then the next Adminis- tration should consider the following reforms: l Switch to fair-value accounting from FCRA accounting, and l Consolidate all federal loan programs into one new program that 1. Utilizes income-driven repayment, 2. Includes no interest rate subsidies or loan forgiveness, 3. Includes annual and aggregate limits on borrowing, and 4. Requires “skin in the game” from colleges to help hold them accountable for loan repayment. The Biden Administration has mercilessly pillaged the student loan portfolio for crass political purposes without regard to the needs of current taxpayers or future students. This must never happen again. l As detailed in Section III, the next Administration should work with Congress to spin off federal student aid into a new government corporation with professional governance and management. NEW POLICY PRIORITIES FOR 2025 AND BEYOND New Legislation That Should Be Prioritized For nearly 250 years, Congress has incorporated public and private institutions, including banks, the District of Columbia’s city government, and other organiza- tions that federal officials deem to be conducting operations in the public interest. Such charters offer a certain status to organizations, often viewed as a “seal of approval” according to one Congressional Research Service report, which can help these organizations in their fundraising and other advocacy efforts. When the nation’s largest teacher association, the National Education Associ- ation (NEA), cites its federal charter, it lends the NEA a level of significance and suggests an effectiveness that is not supported by evidence. In fact, the NEA and the nation’s other large teacher union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), — 342 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise use litigation and other efforts to block school choice and advocate for additional taxpayer spending in education. They also lobbied to keep schools closed during the pandemic. All of these positions run contrary to robust research evidence showing positive outcomes for students from education choice policies; there is no conclusive evidence that more taxpayer spending on schools improves student outcomes; and evidence finds that keeping schools closed to in-person learning resulted in negative emotional and academic outcomes for students. Furthermore, the union promotes radical racial and gender ideologies in schools that parents oppose according to nationally representative surveys. l Congress should rescind the National Education Association’s congressional charter and remove the false impression that federal taxpayers support the political activities of this special interest group. This move would not be unprecedented, as Congress has rescinded the federal charters of other organizations over the past century. The NEA is a demonstrably radical special interest group that overwhelmingly supports left-of-center policies and policymakers. l Members should conduct hearings to determine how much federal taxpayer money the NEA has used for radical causes favoring a single political party. Parental Rights in Education and Safeguarding Students l Federal officials should protect educators and students in jurisdictions under federal control from racial discrimination by reinforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibiting compelled speech. Specifically, no teacher or student in Washington, D.C., public schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, or Department of Defense schools should be compelled to believe, profess, or adhere to any idea, but especially ideas that violate state and federal civil rights laws. By its very design, critical race theory has an “applied” dimension, as its found- ers state in their essays that define the theory. Those who subscribe to the theory believe that racism (in this case, treating individuals differently based on race) is appropriate—necessary, even—making the theory more than merely an analyti- cal tool to describe race in public and private life. The theory disrupts America’s Founding ideals of freedom and opportunity. So, when critical race theory is used as part of school activities such as mandatory affinity groups, teacher training programs in which educators are required to confess their privilege, or school
Introduction
— 338 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise a new IDR plan. The new plan should have an income exemption equal to the poverty line and require payments of 10 percent of income above the exemption. If new legislation is possible, there should be no loan forgiveness, but if not, existing law would require forgiving any remaining balance after 25 years. President Biden has proposed a new income-driven repayment program that would be extremely generous to borrowers, requiring only nominal payments from most students. It would turn every policy lever to the most generous setting on record (e.g., lowering the percentage of income owed from 10 percent to 25 per- cent under existing plans to 5 percent, lowering the number of years of payment required from 20 or 25 years to 10 years, and increasing income exemption from 150 percent to 225 percent of the poverty line). The median borrower who earns an associate degree would owe only $15 a month, regardless of how much he or she had borrowed. The median bachelor’s degree borrower would owe only $68 a month. This plan essentially converts these student loans into delayed grant programs. OTHER STRUCTURAL REFORMS THAT THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION REQUIRES Reform Federal Education Data Collection The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other data col- lections currently release data by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language proficiency, disability, and sex. However, one of the most important—if not the most important—factor influencing student educational achievement and attainment is family structure. As education scholar Ian Rowe has noted, NAEP already collects data on students’ family structure; it just does not make those data publicly available. l The Department of Education (or whichever agency collects such data long term) should make student data available by family structure to the public, including as part of its Data Explorer tool. l As discussed above, data collection efforts should be consolidated under the Census Bureau. l Data collection efforts in higher education should also be improved by housing higher education data at the Department of Labor. This would provide more transparency in evaluating postsecondary education and workforce training program outcomes; contextualize those results based on trends observed more generally; enable the adjusting of real — 339 — Department of Education wages to account for regional differences in earnings and cost of living; and develop a reliable methodology for risk adjusting institutional and program outcomes to more accurately reflect the value added of education programs (as opposed to their admissions selectivity). Currently the Department of Education relies on graduation rates and average earnings as proxies for educational quality. Both of those outcomes, however, are highly dependent upon a student’s socioeconomic background, sex, family status, and other factors. Colleges and universities with selective admissions policies post the strongest outcomes, primarily because they admit mostly low-risk, traditional students. Open enrollment institutions post the weakest outcomes, largely because life is challenging and complicated for low-income and non-traditional students, who may be forced to drop out when a work schedule changes, a child needs more attention, or an unexpected repair or medical bill makes continuing impossible. Such confounding factors make it difficult to isolate the impact of educational qual- ity versus socioeconomic factors on student outcomes. The Department of Health and Human Services faced similar challenges in trying to evaluate healthcare out- comes since social determinants of health result in worse health outcomes among those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, have low educational attainment levels, have struggled with addiction, or have poor diet and exercise habits. Without risk adjustment of outcomes, hospitals treating wealthy patients will always appear to be delivering good care, and hospitals treating low-income patients will appear to be delivering poor care. Higher education outcomes data should be similarly “risk adjusted” to more carefully isolate the impact of educational quality versus socioeconomic status and other factors on college outcomes. Reform the Negotiated Rulemaking Process at ED The U.S. Department of Education is required by statute14 to engage in nego- tiated rulemaking prior to promulgating new regulations under Subchapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as well as Subchapters II (Teacher Quality Enhancements) and IV of the Higher Education Act of 1964 (Student Assistance). The purpose of negotiated rulemaking is to engage a committee of stakeholders early in the drafting of proposed regulations to ensure that the reg- ulation can be implemented as written, to understand any potential unintended consequences, and to seek suggestions from stakeholders on alternative solutions. The goal is for the negotiators to reach a consensus, thus smoothing the way to promulgate a new rule. Although it is helpful for the department to receive stakeholder input, the negotiated rulemaking process has become an expensive and time-consuming undertaking. Consensus is only rarely reached, enabling the department to pursue its own path. The department’s master calendar (which requires final rules to be
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.