Heidi Alexander: “I appreciate the comments and the courtesies of the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions…”

“I appreciate the comments and the courtesies of the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and I recognize his leadership and his interest in these subjects. The Senator asked the question: who connected health care to student loans? It was the Democrats who connected health care to student loans. Think about this. Here we were debating a new health care law a few years ago, and what happened? The Democrats--the majority--said: While we are at it, while we are supposedly fixing health care, we are going to take over the entire student loan program. We are going to take Arnie Duncan, who is a terrific Secretary of Education, and we are going to make him banker of the year, banker of the century, and we will put him in charge of making more than $100 billion in new loans every year to students all over America. So as a part of the health care law, they got rid of the student loan program, most of which was handled by people you would expect to be making loans--that is, banks--and put it all in the government. They did that on the theory that the banks were making too much money. It reminds me of people who think that if it can be found in the Yellow Pages, the government ought to be doing it. Autos, student loans--just put it all in the government.…”