In 2010, Democrats cut the middle man—the banks—out of federal student loans. Federal loan subsidies that had been going to banks instead started going to things like increasing Pell Grants and strengthening Income-Based Repayment programs. Republicans started screaming about a federal takeover of a federal program. It’s now 2014, and Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton is rehashing that Republican myth about student loans dating from 2010:
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.”
Damn Obamacare, grabbing federal money back from banks to expand federal student aid.
Voting by mail is convenient, easy, and defeats the best of the GOP’s voter suppression efforts. Sign up here to check eligibility and vote by mail, then get your friends, family, and coworkers to sign up as well.
There’s no question student loans still need to be fixed—you can talk to Sen. Elizabeth Warren about that—but the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act passed alongside Obamacare was a first step toward doing that, not some kind of theft of student money. If Republicans like Cotton are pissed about it, it’s because they see the banks as their real constituents.
