Raise Those College Students’ Loans Percentages

The Senate failed to pass a bill that would have blocked student loan rates from doubling this month. The House say they want to get our of the business of the government setting interest rates; you know the ostrich head in the sand position. The subsidized government rate was 3.4% and was scheduled to go to 6.8%. Frankly reading through the arguments of both houses of congress left my head spinning. The White House then recommended a middle ground setting student lending rates based upon the Treasury’s borrowing costs, to be fixed for the life of the loan and cap costs at 10% of a student’s income.

Then there is Elizabeth Warren’s bill, which would tie the interest rate on federal Stafford loans to the rate banks receive from the Federal Reserve. This works out lowering them to .75%, which obviously saves students big bucks. This makes far too much sense of ever passing and works against the interests of the plutocrats.

Robert Reich speaks about how government has used taxes to discourage things we want and not taxing things we want. Seems sensible.

So, let’s raise student loan tax rates because educated students are an obvious detriment to the country. What? Shouldn’t we want educated students to compete with other countries and have and educated voters? Well, perhaps if you are a plutocrat you don’t want that. The Orwellian mind set can argue we want to keep those poor folk down where they belong so we can pay the Wal-Mart wages. It fits right in there with the Koch brothers pledge to oppose climate change legislation by taxing polluters.

Now some may quibble that the student loan rate is not really a tax. Really? It fits the criteria of keeping something down we don’t want. Of course, some have argued that it would lower the national debt by charging this high loan rates. Really, how about how it would affect the graduates buying power to stimulate the economy and create taxes if they are bogged down paying off student debts.

Does a college education give you a path to the middle class if you spend most of your increased wages paying down student loans? If you want to discourage students from pursuing higher education our current policy seems to work. Some of us remember when anyone could afford to get a higher education because it was cheap. But then that was during the day of the growing middle class and incomes. If you are under 40 and having studied much history you likely don’t have a clue as to what I am talking about.