The Employment Vanishing Act
Posted by crystalclearconservative
Yesterday, amidst a crowd of supporters at Northern Virginia Community College’s Alexandria campus, President Barack Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act into law. Obama promised that this law will enable more students to achieve a college education and have more affordable loan payments upon graduation. The Washington Examiner reports:
“To make sure our students don’t go broke just because they chose to go to college, we’re making it easier for graduates to afford their student loan payments,” Obama said.
“The average student ends up with more than $23,000 in debt. So when this change takes effect in 2014, we’ll cap a graduate’s annual student loan repayments at 10 percent of his or her income.”Under the measure, private banks would no longer get fees for acting as middlemen in federal student loans. The government would use the savings to boost Pell Grants and make it easier for some workers to repay their student loans. In addition, some borrowers could see lower interest rates and higher approval rates on student loans. Savings are also meant to go toward reducing the deficit and helping to pay for expanded health care.
While this may seem like a noble idea, it does not come cheap for the taxpayers or for the student loan lenders. The Wall Street Journal mentioned in a recent op-ed that the subsidies included in this act will eventually drive up the costs of a college education and the taxpayers would eventually be stuck footing the bill.
If you think the taxpayers are going to be feeling the pinch, there will be many more joining the ranks of the unemployed, as it will cost the student loan industry to reduce their workforce significantly. Sallie Mae will be slashing 2,500 jobs due to the recent passage of this bill. This should have been aptly renamed to The Employment Vanishing Act. With unemployment numbers at an all-time high, 9.7%, this will only cause more turmoil for American families over time and continue to add to our economic woes.
So, will President Obama’s decision to help make higher education more affordable? The costs will likely appear to point to higher taxes, increased government control, and more people joining the unemployment lines.
About crystalclearconservative
Meet Crystal Clear Conservative, a blogger who grew up in Maryland, who now calls Northern Virginia home. I can be contacted at crystalclearblogger@gmail.com.Posted on March 31, 2010, in Economy, National Politics and tagged Barack Obama, Government, Sallie Mae, Student Loans, Taxes, Unemployment. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
While it appears that the unemployment situation is finally hitting Sallie Mae, it’s just a ruse.
Sallie Mae is such a drama queen. The 2,500 cut will just be moved into the collections agencies owned by Sallie Mae which the company has been incentivized to push accounts into since the last round of “reform” in the early 2000′s.
By the way, the average debt number of $23K is skewed low, just like unemployment numbers. Take this into account when politicians complain about the US’s poor performance in mathematics, since nearly all of them went through the same educational system.