Senator Lamar Alexander is Making Things Up
With the prospect of President Obama’s student loan bill passing through the budget reconciliation bill fast approaching, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) took to the Washington Post op-ed page to tell some lies about the bill. Alexander, who used to be the Secretary of Education and knows better, said:
Starting in July, all 19 million students who want government-backed loans will line up at offices designated by the U.S. Education Department…the government should disclose that getting your student loan will become about as enjoyable as going to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
That sounds pretty terrible, spending hour upon hour sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs beneath soul-deadening fluorescent lights, waiting for your number to pop up on a screen so you can shuffle up to a window and listen to a surly civil service worker tell you that you won’t be able to take out a student loan because you still haven’t paid a speeding ticket issued on the Tappan Zee Bridge in November 1993. Why, President Obama, why? Can’t humble college students be spared in your diabolical collectivization plan?
In reality, getting a student loan through the Federal Direct Loan Program isn’t going be any different than it is for the millions of students who are already getting loans through the Federal Direct Loan Program, which involves filling out the same forms you use to get loans under the “give-banks-billions-of-free-taxpayer-dollars” program that Alexander is defending.
Alexander also alleges that the administration has been less than forthcoming about what’s really going on here:
Here is what they haven’t told us: The Education Department will borrow money at 2.8 percent from the Treasury, lend it to you at 6.8 percent and spend the difference on new programs. So you’ll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else’s education — and to help your U.S. representative’s reelection.
It’s not a secret that the government will be lending money for more than that money costs. All lending programs work this way. The difference is that currently