Tag Archives: Stafford Loan

Seeking Donations From Uninformed Voters

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted a copy of a recent letter sent to potential Democrat donors.

This is the letter:

Subject: seriously, thanks!

John –

Last week, we asked you to help us do something big, something truly record breaking.

Well, thanks to your generous support, we had our BEST online showing for May ever!

Your contributions are already being put to use, protecting access to affordable higher education. In fact, we just launched an ad campaign on college campuses across the country, calling out House Republicans for voting to more than double student loan rates. Our campaign has been featured on PBS, CNN, and ABC News — but we’re just getting started.

Will you condemn House Republicans for attempting to make college more expensive?

Stand by President Obama’s veto threat against Republican student loan hikes: Click here to automatically add your name >>

Thanks for all that you do,

Democrats 2014

This is a very persuasive letter–unfortunately very little of it is accurate. The article at Power Line explains some of the inaccuracies:

Only interest rates on subsidized Stafford Loans will be impacted by the July change. Subsidized Stafford Loans are need-based loans for undergraduate students only.

Interest rates on subsidized Stafford Loans issued after July 1, 2013 are set to double to 6.8 percent. Loans issued before this date will come with 3.4 percent interest, which is locked in for the life of the loan.

The article concludes:

So how do the Democrats try to justify their claim that House Republicans “vot[ed] to more than double student loan rates?” They don’t try to justify it. It is an absurd lie, easily recognized as such by anyone who has the faintest acquaintance with the issue. But the Democrats’ fundraising appeals are not directed to the well-informed. They are aimed at low-information voters who turn out for the Democrats in droves because they have no idea what is really going on, and are easily fooled. No doubt the “ad campaign” of which the Democratic Party boasted today will fool thousands, maybe millions, more.

What is remarkable about this is not that party operatives are willing to lie for money, but that not a single prominent Democrat has objected to the practice. Is there a single Democratic office-holder who is willing to criticize his party’s use of blatant lies to seek political advantage? The answer, so far, is: No. Not one.

At the present time, the political left seems to have lost its moral compass. In the past there have been Democrats of principle, but right now we seem to have very few of those. Eventually this sort of activity will catch up to the Democrat party. At that time, I hope there will be some honest men who will step forward and lead the party back to its roots. I was a Democrat for much of my life. It breaks my heart to see where my party has gone.

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Some Background Information On The Student Loan Interest Debate

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To listen to the President now, you would think that all students are going to be bankrupted in two months and it will be the Republicans’ fault. Well, I don’t know how many students will be bankrupted, but the history doesn’t line up with the current story line.

On March 8, 2010, the Wall Street Journal posted an article entitled, “The Other Government Takeover.” The article explained that the Higher Education Act was an add-on to the Obamacare bill.

The article reports some of the details of the Higher Education Act:

…(The act would) ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July. Congress has already passed laws in recent years discouraging private lenders from making loans without a federal guarantee. But most college financial-aid departments still want private companies to originate and service the guaranteed loans. That’s because the alternative—a public option run by the Department of Education—has been distinguished by its Soviet-style customer service.

Unfortunately, the Higher Education Act passed, along with Obamacare.

An article posted at Heritage.org provides some background on the current flap about the interest on these loans:

After gaining control of Congress in 2007, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA) championed H.R. 2669, legislation that only temporarily phased down interest rates for subsidized Stafford Loans made to undergraduate students over four academic years, at which point the rate would revert back to 6.8 percent.… [E]xtending the 3.4% interest rate on subsidized Stafford Loans made to undergraduate students for one year would cost roughly $6 billion.

This current ‘crisis’ was set up!

Heritage further reports:

Debate over interest rate hikes are part of a larger problem with federal involvement and ever-increasing subsidies for higher education. The cost of attending college has increased 439 percent since 1982 (after adjusting for inflation). Continuing to increase federal subsidies hasn’t helped reduce college costs and has likely exacerbated the problem over the decades.

Maybe we should consider the fact that as student loan money has increased, the cost of college has increased. The fact that there has been a 439 percent increase in the cost of attending college in thirty-years (even after adjusting for inflation) should tell us something.

 

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