Sunday, April 16, 2006

Reverse the Raid Act

The premise of NCLB is that all high school students now prepare for college. Such platitudes deny the unaffordable expense of college and the Bush administration's tangled special interest complicities in driving up the interest rates on student loans. These loans now prepare college students for an early life of debt and lowered living standard than any generations of college student to come before. That is, unless the family is independently wealthy.

The linked article advocates change;

The Raid On Student Aid
By Earl Hadley
TomPaine.com

Friday 14 April 2006

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., have introduced the Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act of 2006 , which would cut interest rates on college loans in half. The typical student borrower would save $5,600 over the duration of their loan. As with national security, Democrats have stepped up with an alternative and progressives must now do our part to get that message out.

To make college affordability an election-year issue we need to put the Reverse the Raid Act in front of the Republicans and the media. Progressives need to force the Republicans to stand either with America's students and middle-class families or with their special interest friends. With this goal in mind, the Campaign for America's Future has launched a petition campaign, demanding that House Majority Leader, John Boehner, R-Ohio, endorse the Reverse the Raid Act.

We've targeted Rep. Boehner because he is the poster child of the Republican failure on college affordability. As former Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee he shepherded through the $12 billion cuts. Boehner helped to make sure that students and parents continue to pay excessive interest rates on college loans, while protecting the interests of his financial backers-student loan companies like Sallie Mae, which has donated $122,470 to Boehner's PAC. While Boehner and his fellow Republicans have tried to justify their cuts to college assistance with rhetoric about deficit reduction, when the tax cuts for the wealthy are accounted for, the Republican slash'n'burn plan actually increases the deficit.

The bottom line is that our students don't have time for Republican word games. Republicans need to answer once and for all whether they are looking out for America's students or special interests. Let's begin by putting House Majority Leader John Boehner on the hot seat.

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