Selling Out the Future
Interest rates that students and parents pay on college loans would soar under legislation pushed Tuesday by the Obama administration and the president’s allies among congressional Republicans. Sen. Bernie Sanders was working with others to block the proposal or at least make it less onerous for middle-class families trying to afford increasingly costly higher education. He said a “disingenuous” White House report tried to sweep under the rug the big rate hikes that the Congressional Budget Office said were likely in coming years if the legislation is enacted. Sanders will offer a floor amendment that would put a two-year expiration date on the legislation. That would avoid the worst of the rate increases while he and other members of the Senate education committee come up with a better way to control college costs during next year’s reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Sanders also questioned the President Obama’s political tin ear. “At a time when Democrats control the White House and the U.S. Senate, we should not support bad legislation almost identical to that passed by a very conservative, Republican-led House,” said Sanders. “Our job is to listen to the people who elected us and stand up for working families and their kids, not make their lives more difficult.”
