Republican Tom Cotton said during an Arkansas U.S. Senate debate on Tuesday that “Obamacare nationalized the student loan industry.”
The first-term congressman added, “That’s right, Obamacare grabbed money to pay for its own programs and took that choice away from you.”
The reality is less simple. Obamacare was paired with a bill that made significant changes to the federal student loan program, largely cutting banks out as middle-men between the government and recipients of the loans. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the changes would save $58 billion over 10 years, about $8.7 billion of which would be used to fund Obamacare programs.
Of the remaining savings, $36 billion would go to higher Pell grants for lower-income college students, $3 billion for historically black and minority-serving colleges and $10.3 billion to reduce the deficit, as noted by the Washington Post’s fact-checker.
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), whom Cotton is vying to unseat, attacked the Republican for benefiting from government-subsidized student loans and seeking to “eliminate” the federal program.
“Once again, you listen to Congressman Cotton — no solution,” he said. “He doesn’t have an answer on [student loans].”
Wow. Republicans think that voters are really, really dumb.
The appalling truth is that roughly half the time, they’re right.
Tom, why don’t you just cut to the chase and scream
BENGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIII!!!1010101!!! and move on?
Actually, Rep. Cotton, before Obama, the student loan system was already somewhat nationalized: the federal government gave money to private banks to provide the loans, and then guaranteed about 97 percent of the value of the loan.
The banks made money without facing any real exposure if the student couldn’t pay.
It’s the supply-side version of socialism: privatized profit, public risk.
Nice work if you can get it.
He’s too stupid even to lie skilfully.