Ted Poe: “I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, banks offer car loans at a 3.99 percent interest rate. Banks also…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, banks offer car loans at a 3.99 percent interest rate. Banks also offer 30-year fixed mortgages on homes with an interest rate of 3.8 percent. Student loans are currently at 3.4 percent, but if we don't do something, it's going to jump to 6.8 percent. It seems to me Congress can handle this and do something about it. Recent reports show that 50 percent of recent graduates from college are unemployed or underemployed. I received an email from a Kingwood Park High School student today named Derek encouraging Congress to do a commonsense thing: to put the student loan rate at 3.4 percent. Why don't we do that? The student loan debt has reached a trillion dollars. Why would we want to strap students going into college with more debt by increasing the student loan rate in this current economic climate? You can get a car loan rate very low. In fact, you can get some car loans with 0 percent, but not so with students. Why is that? We should maintain low interest rates for student loans. Cars and homes are important, but students going to college are an investment in our future. Education is an important tool for our young people to be able to contribute to America's competitiveness worldwide. Also, the bill is paid for. Some of the money that's coming out of this unconstitutional health care mandate will go to deficit reduction.…”