Paul Ryan: “Mr. Speaker, the student aid bill that passed out of the Committee on Education and Labor is nothing but a Trojan Horse…”

“Mr. Speaker, the student aid bill that passed out of the Committee on Education and Labor is nothing but a Trojan Horse for new spending. In fact, the bill creates nine, count it, nine new entitlement programs and abuses the protection of reconciliation procedures through token budgetary 'savings.' It also favors the government-controlled and costly direct lending program over the nonprofit and commercial lenders, promoting a back-door expansion of taxpayer-financed student support and a substantial increase in taxpayer liability. I want to make four basic points, Mr. Speaker: Number one, budget experts have unequivocally warned Congress, experts from the left and from the right and center and everywhere else, that the unrestrained growth in entitlement spending programs is the most fundamental challenge and the largest threat to our Nation's long-term economic health. Comptroller General David Walker refers to the rising costs of entitlements as a 'fiscal cancer' that threatens 'catastrophic consequences for our country' and could 'bankrupt America.'”