{"id":6907,"date":"2006-03-21T10:06:12","date_gmt":"2006-03-21T15:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6907"},"modified":"2006-03-21T10:06:12","modified_gmt":"2006-03-21T15:06:12","slug":"bush-still-wrong-on-student-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-still-wrong-on-student-loans\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush still wrong on student loans"},"content":{"rendered":"

In January, Bush spoke<\/a> at Kansas State University and was asked by a student about cuts to federal student loans. The president answered the question incorrectly<\/a>, and said there hadn’t been any cuts, but he assured the student, “I think I’m right on this. I’ll check when I get back to Washington.”<\/p>\n

Bush apparently didn’t check very closely, because he got it wrong again<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n

Q: Mr. President, with the war in Iraq costing $19,600 per U.S. household, how do you expect a generation of young people such as ourselves, to afford college a time like this, when we’re paying for a war Iraq?<\/p>\n

Bush: Yes. Well — hold on for a minute. Hold on. We can do more than one thing at one time. And when you grow your economy, like we’re growing our economy, there is an opportunity to not only protect ourselves, but also to provide more Pell grants than any administration in our nation’s history, and increase the student loan program. So if you take a look, I think you’ll find that we’re robust in helping — at the federal level, helping people go to college. And it’s essential you go to college. It’s essential that there be a group of youngsters coming up that are well-educated so that we can maintain our economic leadership position in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that the federal government can finance more than one priority at once, it’s just that Bush has chosen not to<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Student Loans: On Dec. 21, 2005, the Senate passed $12.7 billion in cuts to education programs<\/a> — “the largest cut<\/a> in student college loan programs in history.” Vice President Cheney<\/a> cast the deciding vote in favor of the cuts. The bill also fixed the interest rate on student loans at 6.8 percent, “even if commercial rates are lower.” Despite Bush’s claims, students will be left off the program<\/u>.<\/p>\n

Pell Grants: Pell Grants have been frozen or cut since 2002; they are now stuck at a maximum of $4,050<\/a>. In his 2000 election campaign, President Bush promised to increase the maximum Pell Grant amount to $5,100<\/a>. “From 2004 to 2005, 24,000 students lost their Pell grants<\/u>, according to a report pre-pared by the Congressional Research Service. This was the first drop in the number of students receiving the grants in several years; the number had been growing steadily since 1999.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure Bush will want to “check on this” upon getting back to DC, and will issue a correction any day now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In January, Bush spoke at Kansas State University and was asked by a student about cuts to federal student loans. The president answered the question incorrectly, and said there hadn’t been any cuts, but he assured the student, “I think I’m right on this. I’ll check when I get back to Washington.” Bush apparently didn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}