Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I join with my colleagues to urge the Senate to take up and pass the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act led by my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren. This is about fairness, it is about values, and it is about what is best for our students and our shared economic future. Earlier this month Senator Whitehouse and I held a roundtable with Rhode Islanders about student loan debt. Rhode Island ranks in the top five for the amount of debt students incur to earn an undergraduate degree. We heard from a teacher who works a second job to help make his loan payments and a parent who worries how she will be able to help her son pay for college while she is still making loan payments. We heard from Rhode Island realtors about the impact student loan debt is having on the housing market. This is an issue that strikes home for all of us. Even our Nation's seniors are impacted. GAO recently reported that from 2002 through 2013, the number of individuals whose Social Security benefits were offset to pay student loan debt increased fivefold. Think about it. These are senior citizens who are paying off student loans. Their actual Social Security benefit checks are being affected by student loan debt. That is something I find disturbing and completely unpredictable. If you would have asked me 2 or 3 or 4 years ago--certainly if you asked me 30 years ago when I was in my thirties or so, I would have said, no, that wouldn't happen.…”