Florida Republicans and Democrats unite to address student loan debt amidst challenges to Biden-Harris loan forgiveness plan.

An unlikely pair is advocating for Congress to address the growing issue of college debt, which affects millions of Americans.

This week, Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Anna Paulina Luna presented a bill to limit federal student loan interest to 3%. Luna stated to Planet Chronicle Digital that she is already preparing to advocate for a House-wide vote on the matter.

Luna stated that she expects to have the conversation in person when they return next week.

Luna and Moskowitz anticipated that the bill would require a two-thirds majority for passage, but Johnson wants to fast-track it under the "suspension of the rules" procedure, which allows legislation to bypass the normal committee process in exchange for raising the threshold for passage to two-thirds.

According to Moskowitz, if this is presented to the floor, it would likely pass. In fact, if it bypasses committee, it may receive two-thirds support. Moskowitz believes it would pass overwhelmingly.

"Any member would find it challenging to vote against it," Luna stated.

Additionally, she proposed launching a discharge petition for the bill, which would necessitate a vote on the legislation if the petition received a majority of House members' signatures.

Luna stated that although discharge petitions seldom succeed in compelling a House-wide vote, merely creating one could exert pressure on leadership to act.

"Luna stated that she converses with individuals who express similar sentiments, such as "I am literally paying off loans from 15, 20 years ago, and because the interest rate is so high, we're not even able to make a dent." She added that this situation is turning Americans into indentured servants."

Despite the Biden-Harris administration's repeated attempts at mass student loan forgiveness being thwarted by GOP-led states and the conservative Supreme Court, President Biden has implemented more limited forgiveness measures.

While Luna and Moskowitz have varying opinions on Biden's initiative, they both agree that there is a need for reform to the student debt system, as they have heard people from both sides of the political spectrum express this need.

We were both working on the issue independently in our own silos until we discussed it in a conversation and realized we had a shared interest in addressing it.

"The issue is widely recognized. . . . We can begin by addressing a shared concern, which is providing educational loans to those who cannot afford them, without burdening them with lifelong debt."

Both candidates rejected the idea of giving each other a victory during the highly divisive atmosphere of an election year.

"I can't be concerned about that because if we're going to make progress for the American family, I'm not interested in this credit nonsense," Moskowitz said. "If I'm out there criticizing Republicans who wanted to deny Joe Biden a win on something, I can't then partake in that behavior myself, right?"

In the end, our country will consider a victory.

She stated that she was aware that it was an election year and expressed her hope that Democrats would view the legislation as a net positive, rather than as something that was passed by the Republican body.

By the end of 2023, approximately 43 million Americans were carrying about $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, according to federal statistics.

According to the Education Data Initiative, nearly 95% of student debt is from federal loans, with an average interest rate of 5.99%.