Political Quotes

“This question of college debt that my colleague, Mr. Gowdy, spoke about, that is brutal. It is not a red State-blue State deal, and it is not a Republican-Democratic deal. It is young people getting out of college with a mountain of debt, and they are starting out with the equivalent of a mortgage. There has been an enormous amount of attention in this body to how to deal with that and a lot of debate about how to deal with it. I know Mr. Miller has been a champion on this cause along with Mr. Tierney on our side and, I know, Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Kline on the other side. I have pushed back, to some extent, on our college administrators, because it is not just a matter of what taxpayers can afford to fund by way of grant and aid or what families can afford to put up from their hard-earned savings, it is a question of what will college administrators do to try to keep those tuition increases down. So we need the active participation of our college administrators. When I talked to Mr. Gowdy, he talked to his folks, I guess the president of Clemson, and I spoke with the president of the University of Vermont and some of our other college leaders in Vermont, and they were somewhat resistant to the notion of our getting involved in what they saw as their job and made some complaints that regulations were causing them to have to spend money. Now, sometimes that can be an excuse, but I think what Mr. Gowdy said is the right way to go. Let's take a look at them.…”