Eric Swalwell: “I rise in opposition, Mr. Speaker, to the Making College More Expensive Act. How short are some of the memories of my…”

“I rise in opposition, Mr. Speaker, to the Making College More Expensive Act. How short are some of the memories of my friends on the other aside, for it was market-based principles, unregulated market-based principles, that led to the housing crisis that we are just now getting out of. Doubling the student loan rate is an attack on students. The increased debt that they will take on will build a great wall around our middle class. There's no better way to have a healthy, growing middle class than access to education. Today, our middle class is shrinking. If you're in the middle class, you're making about $5,000 less than you were 10 years ago. If you're in the middle class, you owe about $25,000 more in debt than you did 10 years ago. Doubling the rates will increase the debt that our middle class has. I know a thing or two about student loans. I have thousands of dollars of them myself. This is not just dollars on interest rates. We are talking thousands of dollars that individual borrowers like myself and the people that grew up with me in a middle class town called Dublin will take on. Let's tear down this great wall that the GOP and the House leadership are trying to build around our middle class. Let's not double the rates.”