Holding Jim Nussle Accountable for Higher Education Cuts
Hey everyone-
The Drake Democrats are going to soon set out on a campaign to demonstrate our outrage that Republicans in Congress are putting college students deeper into debt in order to fund tax breaks for millionares (and also to show the Democrat alternatives to reducing higher education costs)
Republican Congressman Jim Nussle of Eastern Iowa is largely to blame for selling out our education and our future, but we're going to show him that college students do, in fact, pay attention to what he's doing in Congress. Keep checking back for upcoming actions - we're finalizing a campaign strategy this week.
Here's an editorial from yesterday's Times-Delphic that explains the situation:
Republicans Raising Student Loan Costs
By Patrick Rynard
If you don’t have a part-time job right now, you might want to start searching the classifieds section. Because if you’re paying your Drake tuition with federal loans, Republicans in Congress just made your life a whole lot harder.
On Wednesday, just one day after President Bush vowed in his State of the Union speech to make America more competitive by improving education, the Republican-led House cut the federal student loan program by $12.7 billion. It was the largest cut in that program’s history, and accounted for about 1/3 of the deficit-reduction package the President soon hopes to sign.
The consequences for college students couldn’t be much worse. What it basically means is that when you reapply this summer for your federal student loans to pay for next year’s tuition, your interest rate is going to rise from 5.3% to 6.8%. And if your parents have a PLUS loan (as I believe mine do), their interest rate is going to shoot from 6.1% to 8.5%. And keep in mind that Drake is raising its tuition once again, so those loans are going to have to be for even more money.
While the bill does increase borrowing limits for some students, overall it will send many of us into more debt for more years. And it will likely even close the door on the dream of attending college for some high school students who simply can’t afford it anymore.
But what can you really do about our government’s lack of concern for our financial future? Well, on a personal level, you might want to see if you can graduate early. However, if you really care about your and your fellow Americans’ education, you should look at who supported these cuts.
Some people think the Republican and Democratic parties are pretty similar, but the differences couldn’t have been clearer this week. The vote for the bill in the House was 216-214, with every Democrat voting against it. The same occurred in the Senate with a vote of 51-50, with Vice President Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote.
Democrats fought very hard to prevent the cuts, and have consistently called for making college more affordable by setting lower fixed interest rates on student loans, providing more and larger government scholarships, and even looking into the idea of making college tuition tax-deductible.
Republicans, on the other hand, further demonstrated how little they care about college students and their families when they also called this week for another $70 billion in tax cuts, overwhelmingly aimed at the richest in society.
The priorities of Republicans couldn’t be more backwards: help those who already have wealth; hurt those who seek to gain it. In his State of the Union speech, Bush even specifically said that his budget would cut or eliminate programs that weren’t working or “not fulfilling essential priorities.” So either we’re all mistaken in thinking our low-interest student loans actually help us, or we’re just simply not an “essential priority.”
This is the perfect case of how the low voting turnout among college-aged students directly affects whether government cares about us or not. So if you want to do something about the affordability of your education, keep in mind how some Iowan legislators voted on the issue.
Republican Congressman Jim Nussle, from eastern Iowa, didn’t just vote for the cuts, but helped create the plan as the chairman of the House Budget Committee. This fall, he is likely to be the Republican nominee to be Iowa’s next governor.
Our own Congressman, Democrat Leonard Boswell, voted against the bill, and has often pushed for increasing the size of Pell Grants. He will be up for what may be a tough reelection fight.
My suggestion to you is to remind our political leaders in Washington that college students would prefer to not be driven deep into debt in order to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. So when November 7th rolls around, you should go out to the polls and thank Congressman Boswell, and tell Congressman Nussle that he shouldn’t continue destroying our future as Governor of Iowa.
(Printed in Drake University’s Times-Delphic newspaper, February 6th, 2006)
The Drake Democrats are going to soon set out on a campaign to demonstrate our outrage that Republicans in Congress are putting college students deeper into debt in order to fund tax breaks for millionares (and also to show the Democrat alternatives to reducing higher education costs)
Republican Congressman Jim Nussle of Eastern Iowa is largely to blame for selling out our education and our future, but we're going to show him that college students do, in fact, pay attention to what he's doing in Congress. Keep checking back for upcoming actions - we're finalizing a campaign strategy this week.
Here's an editorial from yesterday's Times-Delphic that explains the situation:
Republicans Raising Student Loan Costs
By Patrick Rynard
If you don’t have a part-time job right now, you might want to start searching the classifieds section. Because if you’re paying your Drake tuition with federal loans, Republicans in Congress just made your life a whole lot harder.
On Wednesday, just one day after President Bush vowed in his State of the Union speech to make America more competitive by improving education, the Republican-led House cut the federal student loan program by $12.7 billion. It was the largest cut in that program’s history, and accounted for about 1/3 of the deficit-reduction package the President soon hopes to sign.
The consequences for college students couldn’t be much worse. What it basically means is that when you reapply this summer for your federal student loans to pay for next year’s tuition, your interest rate is going to rise from 5.3% to 6.8%. And if your parents have a PLUS loan (as I believe mine do), their interest rate is going to shoot from 6.1% to 8.5%. And keep in mind that Drake is raising its tuition once again, so those loans are going to have to be for even more money.
While the bill does increase borrowing limits for some students, overall it will send many of us into more debt for more years. And it will likely even close the door on the dream of attending college for some high school students who simply can’t afford it anymore.
But what can you really do about our government’s lack of concern for our financial future? Well, on a personal level, you might want to see if you can graduate early. However, if you really care about your and your fellow Americans’ education, you should look at who supported these cuts.
Some people think the Republican and Democratic parties are pretty similar, but the differences couldn’t have been clearer this week. The vote for the bill in the House was 216-214, with every Democrat voting against it. The same occurred in the Senate with a vote of 51-50, with Vice President Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote.
Democrats fought very hard to prevent the cuts, and have consistently called for making college more affordable by setting lower fixed interest rates on student loans, providing more and larger government scholarships, and even looking into the idea of making college tuition tax-deductible.
Republicans, on the other hand, further demonstrated how little they care about college students and their families when they also called this week for another $70 billion in tax cuts, overwhelmingly aimed at the richest in society.
The priorities of Republicans couldn’t be more backwards: help those who already have wealth; hurt those who seek to gain it. In his State of the Union speech, Bush even specifically said that his budget would cut or eliminate programs that weren’t working or “not fulfilling essential priorities.” So either we’re all mistaken in thinking our low-interest student loans actually help us, or we’re just simply not an “essential priority.”
This is the perfect case of how the low voting turnout among college-aged students directly affects whether government cares about us or not. So if you want to do something about the affordability of your education, keep in mind how some Iowan legislators voted on the issue.
Republican Congressman Jim Nussle, from eastern Iowa, didn’t just vote for the cuts, but helped create the plan as the chairman of the House Budget Committee. This fall, he is likely to be the Republican nominee to be Iowa’s next governor.
Our own Congressman, Democrat Leonard Boswell, voted against the bill, and has often pushed for increasing the size of Pell Grants. He will be up for what may be a tough reelection fight.
My suggestion to you is to remind our political leaders in Washington that college students would prefer to not be driven deep into debt in order to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. So when November 7th rolls around, you should go out to the polls and thank Congressman Boswell, and tell Congressman Nussle that he shouldn’t continue destroying our future as Governor of Iowa.
(Printed in Drake University’s Times-Delphic newspaper, February 6th, 2006)
posted by Drake Dems @ 2:49 PM
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