Scott DesJarlais

I think one great way to lessen costs for college students and taxpayers is to graduate students in as timely a manner as possible.

A problem that we have seen evolving over the past couple decades is the amount of time it takes for students to complete college degrees.

In 2010, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.

I want to first join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in sending our well-wishes to the ranking member of this subcommittee, Carolyn McCarthy.

30 million to 40 million people are not going to have insurance with this new signature Obamacare

Madam Secretary, what, in your opinion, was the biggest reason or need for Obamacare or this health care law?

I will look forward to working with you.

We can't sustain that path or everyone is going to lose out on this.

I agree that we need to be more efficient.

But I would like to see more young people have access to Pell Grants, not less.

What reforms do you have available or what ideas do you have to help lower this cost?

I continue to be concerned about the runaway cost of the Pell Grant program.

Today's hearing is about one thing, one simple thing: It's finding the truth.

I think that there is a real frustration among the private sector when the federal government tells them what is best for them yet doesn't live by the same rules.

It is very easy for us to be cavalier up here when we talk about federal government or federal loans.

There aren't federal loans; there are taxpayer loans. We are paying these loans and we should be able to get a return on investment.

Student loans have almost become an entitlement and as Mr. Draeger said, I don't think we are educating students.

Pell grants just 6 years ago helped 5 million students at the cost of $12 billion. Now we are helping 9 million students at the cost of $43 billion.

This ship is sinking because of mismanagement and educational institutions continue to raise costs because we continue to throw money at that.

I graduated medical school in 1991 with $120,000 in debt. My lowest interest on my loan was 9 percent. My highest was 18 percent.

There are so many things about this issue that are troubling to me and I feel like we have just been kind of missing the point as we talk about what the federal government should do, what the interest rates should be, and that is just the…

This is an issue of top concern to my constituents in Tennessee's 4th Congressional District.

Sequestration needs to happen. Bottom line, it needs to happen, and that is the deal we struck to raise the debt limit.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Penalizing people for working is not compassionate. We need to rethink and restructure the way we administer our social safety nets so that we are actually empowering people rather than dooming them to dependency.