This July, your student loans are going to get even more expensive. Currently, the interest rate that you'll pay on them after graduation is 3.4 percent. If Congress doesn't act and freeze the rate, it will double to 6.8 percent.
Apparently, House Speaker John Boehner thinks that pointing out this fact is creating a false issue. So when Obama noted that Republicans are perfectly content with us paying twice as much for college loan interest, Boehner wasn't very happy.
So let's make one thing perfectly clear: it might not mean much to you, Mr. Boehner, but it's sure as hell important to young people and the future of this nation.
It all stems from the House Representative Paul Ryan's budget that was passed by a massive group of Republicans last month. All but 10 GOP representatives voted in favor of the budget, which notoriously takes a flamethrower to anti-poverty programs.
Among the provisions in this bill is exactly what Obama is talking about, a doubling of the student loan interest rate.
Boehner might want to make it seem like the Republicans don't want the rate to go up, and that Obama is just making things up, but he should probably start reading the bills he's signing.
Now, with a significant amount of egg on his face, Boehner is saying that Republicans actually do support freezing the interest rate. Is this the moment we finally see some bi-partisan support for a reasonable cause?
Fat chance.
Both sides of the aisle want to make sure the freeze on interest rates is paid for. Indeed, an admirable cause, nobody wants to be giving out money that is not there. Yet the two parties have massively different methods to raise the cash.
Democrats want to fill a specific tax loophole that lets some very successful doctors, lawyers, and consultants avoid paying payroll taxes by claiming themselves to be S-corporations. In the past, Republicans have supported measures like this.
Today, it's a totally different ball game. It's election season, and rather than allow a reasonable measure pass with a smart way to pay for it, Republicans have found it to be an opportune time to attack Obamacare.
The GOP's idea to pay for an interest rates freeze is to pay for it by taking the money away from a part of the Affordable Care Act designed to help women get screened for breast and cervical cancer, and provide funding for children born with birth defects.
Republicans are using their age-old tactic of holding a gun to the head of two important programs and asking Democrats "whom should I kill?" It's a continuation of everything that's despicable about the current system of government, where working together entails holding one important program hostage by threatening another.
We know Obama brought up the issue because it's an election year and he's trying to appeal to college students, but that doesn't make it any less of a real issue. The fight is there, it's political, and Obama is exploiting it for his own gain, as he should. He's right.
For most of us, the only way we can attend college is through federally funded loans. Higher education is getting more expensive by the year, and there is no way for us to make it without help.
Don't hold the intellectual future of our nation hostage because you want to look tough.
