Political Quotes

“I recognize it is a much larger State. The nice thing about the Senate is that we all have two Senators. There has been a great deal of work put together by so many people here: Senator Carper, Senator Manchin, Senator Alexander, Senator Harkin, Senator King, and Senator Burr. I could go on. They have been trying--in a principled way--to help students. They provided short-term help, but the major criticism I have of the legislation is that it locks us into the long-run, predictable rate increases and will add further to the burden that students and families are bearing to send their children, and themselves, to college and beyond. Despite these great efforts, I just do not believe this approach, if unamended, is going to be the way we want to move forward. Mark Kantrowitz is a well-known expert on student aid. His comments are particularly telling. It's still going to be, effectively, an interest rate increase masquerading as a decrease. Students currently enrolled will benefit from the low interest rates, but as the economy recovers and rates rise, today's high school students could end up paying more than 6.8 percent. It's far from a permanent solution. I think he is right. I wish to emphasize the fact that as the economy recovers and rates rise, one of the fallacies of the CBO projections is that back in early 2000s they suggested that interest rates would stay very high. They did not anticipate the collapse in 2008 and 2009 of our economy.…”