Posted on 04/23/2012 7:01:58 PM PDT by Steelfish
Romney Backs Student Loan Proposal Obama Supports By KASIE HUNT
ASTON, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday embraced a student loan proposal that President Barack Obama is selling on the campaign trail and refused to endorse Sen. Marco Rubio's conservative immigration plan aimed at helping young illegal immigrants.
The two policy positions signaled an effort by Romney to move to the political center as he works to court critical general election swing voters — including young voters and Hispanic voters — after a brutal primary fight.
"I think young voters in this country have to vote for me if they're really thinking of what's in the best interest of the country and what's in their personal best interest," Romney said as he stood next to Rubio, R-Fla.
Romney was campaigning in Pennsylvania a day before the state's primary — he doesn't have serious opposition now that Sen. Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race — and answered reporters' questions for the first time since effectively securing the GOP presidential nomination.
House Republicans oppose legislation to extend temporarily low-interest rates for student loans. Obama has been pushing Congress for the extension and planned a three-state tour this week to warn students of the potential financial catastrophe they will face if Congress fails to act.
Interest rates are set to double on July 1, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, on a popular federal loan for low- and middle-income undergraduates.
"I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates for students," Romney said Monday, a day before five states hold primaries, though he did not offer specifics on how the extension should be paid for or how long it should last. He said he supports the extension because of "extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He believes he has the nomination sewed up - so he’s not running right back to his Leftist direction.
Republicans are idiots
the GOP & RNC have been taken over by leftists of the same mold as the Democrats.
You all go ahead and cast your vote for Romney — after all, he isn’t Obama (even though he looks more like him than not).
But please - for all the “We have to vote for Romney because he is not Obama” preaching crowd her on FreeRepublic - please check what this board is suppose to be about - CONSERVATISM. Romney is no conservative by any measure or standard. Even next to Obama, he doesn’t look particularly Conservative.
I am done playing along with the scharade. You all can throw your vote at Mr. Marxist Mitt if you want. But my tag line stands. I cannot bring myself to repeat 2008 and the vote for the lesser evil. My heart won’t take it.
Problem is - With Mitt on the ticket in November - I’m afraid a lot of otherwise Republican/Conservative voters that are needed to take the Senate just won’t show up to the polls. THAT would be an even bigger mistake than voting for Romney.
So - I will either skip the presidential line in November and vote the rest of the ballot, or will vote for some 3rd party as a protest vote on the Presidential line.
Romney really is a democrat by nature.
This isn’t fair!
I have “Buyers remorse” and I didnt even get to vote.
Who is the Green candidate?.....
Is it too late to change My Party?
There isn’t one square inch left in My Back without a Knife in it.
YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL....
Not sure about others loans but..
My wife has about 50K in student loans through the government.. Shes working her way through the disability maze at the moment. The debt was taken on 8-10 years ago. Since then her type 1 diabetes, fibro and neropathy have forced her out of her profession and out of the work force completely.
We are on a income based repayment plan. Currently our payment is 0.00 a month. I’d send them checks when I had extra. They’d send them back.
The debt is forgiven after 20 years I think it is.
Who needs it discharged when you never have to make a payment?
Where are all the Romneybots to tell me that I have to vote for this POS?
or to tell us if we don’t vote for this POS we are voting for the other POS.
Romney’s enamoring with retardation seems to catch up with Obama’s third world mentality and embrace of terror. The vectors of moralist pride in vanity of pro-retardation are becoming more parallel every day.
Man, medicine is soon to be democratic, I guess, and, thus, the insane will decide what to prescribe if they are more numerous than the doctors.
Drug laws here we go.
I understand why you think this. After all student loans are for the greater good right? They are used to promote valuable trades this nation is so deeply in need of.
Perhaps we should give every student, black, white, asian hispanic all creeds the ability to go to school for anything they choose? Hell you and I will fund the whole thing. And every year that we do, we’ll see the rates at the colleges continue to increase. After all many schools are a free-market system right? So we keep raising rates until we can’t fill our metrics then we back down.
Only problem with the above is it’s complete rubbish. How can the system back-down when free money keeps flowing in.
We shouldn’t have zero interest loans for schools without a closed loop in place. But that means even more regulations. (Which I oppose) A closed loop meaning that the schools would have to maintain a consistent head count, costs should be reduced by 3-5% per year based on employee productivity gains. And the person who takes the loan MUST repay the loan, plus provide (N/2) of community service. Where N is the number of years they went to school using public funding. Sounds fair doesn’t it? Even a cripple can volunteer time at a library to tutor English, after-all they are college graduates!
I do agree with your latter thoughts, but just saying having the “LOWEST POSSIBLE INTEREST RATES” is a scam waiting to happen and it happens every day.
The market must be allowed to work and using public funds to fuel the furnace which provides funds to lobby and special interest is incestuous at best.
Romney is doing what Romney does... Nothing. He leads on NOTHING, He proposes NOTHING, he runs the circles to make sure his answers will poll well, He is a damn disgrace to EVER have the (R) next to his name, and he is about as conservative as Jesus was a Nazi.
Newt is it for the hope of not only the party but also of leadership. But I believe the party must be remade, and the reforging of principles burned and folded within the candidates, and rekindling of service before self to our nation.
Honestly I can’t envision Romney being able to beat Obama. When the Dems start their targeted ads they won’t be nice, but they will probably be accurate. And the general mass of uninformed Americans are going to wonder how the candidates differ. This will be appealed by Obama agreeing that they really aren’t so different... and that it’s Good to see such progressive views from his friends across the isle... Then Obama will cater to the matters at hand and the need for swift action... He’ll appeal to the long cycle to come-up to speed with national matters... identify that he’s spent xx years in Federal service and understands how to get things done... communicate that Obamacare was the start... and now we’ll make it better... but we got it done... (similar I might add to our good friend from MA) I could go on-and-on... it’s going to play out like the above is my guess...
People are blinded...
Roll Back public student loans, force repayment, and do it now. Keep the loans only for specialty programs where we are deficient in filling jobs with candidates. Institute Trade schools, invigorate the need for community college at the STATE level, Have students work through school. There are a number of schools that do this as a method of internship/mentoring where students come out not only well armed to tackle the profession but damn near debt free, IT WORKS!
That’s my .25 cents,
I believe the discussion is MARKET RATE loans. You do realize that education loans are not dischargeable in court which means they are the next best thing to a loan backed by collateral. That means they should command rates very nearly as low as your best mortgage rates ~ which, in fact, are currently lower than education loans.
Removing the cap on education loans (which are capped, not those which aren't) ought to result in no change at all.
NOTE TO SELF: Education loans not currently as low as the lowest education loans should have their rates reduced substantially!
I 100% agree with the notion of not allowing the loan to be forgiven. Don’t you? After all if an adult made the conscious decision to take the easy path and get loans should they not be required to pay back that loan? As to the % of the note isn’t that up to what the market will bare? Perhaps if the government stopped backing 80% of loans we could see some various market solutions. Perhaps you’d see more investors actively trying to assist the student in finding slid placement, in a career to help pay that loan off, as they are an investor in that person after all.
Education is something that can’t be sold off on auction for the creditor to recoup the money. So why should it be lowered or forgiven based on the original agreement. They signed the papers and they are big girls and boys aren’t they?
I go back to the root of the problem. It’s not the loan rates it’s the perpetual increase in the cost of education. Its also the rather easy access to money both foreign and domestic. It’s the influx of foreign students who can come here and pay full price, and it’s our allowance to have them fill slots in the hope they will stay and be productive, many do but I believe most do not. (a guess)
As sure as we have seen a bubble in housing that has still not corrected enough in many areas, we are seeing a education bubble. And lowering the rates doesn’t help it just delays. Students working at McDs with a masters in English or some other near useless degree is sad, but in the ever push to appease our children no one explained to them what they would be qualified to realistically earn after graduating or they failed to read journals on job and skill demands, again the fault of the person. After all if they went into a high demand field they would have the money to quickly pay their loans.
To top it off, why kids don’t use the military for school assistance is beyond me. In many cases it can teach many of the self-absorbed narcissists something of service. actually provide for teaming in a interesting job, and give them money and free schooling.
Once a contract is struck it must be honored by honest men, or the result is decay and erosion if trust.
I 100% agree with the notion of not allowing the loan to be forgiven. Don’t you? After all if an adult made the conscious decision to take the easy path and get loans should they not be required to pay back that loan? As to the % of the note isn’t that up to what the market will bare? Perhaps if the government stopped backing 80% of loans we could see some various market solutions. Perhaps you’d see more investors actively trying to assist the student in finding slid placement, in a career to help pay that loan off, as they are an investor in that person after all.
Education is something that can’t be sold off on auction for the creditor to recoup the money. So why should it be lowered or forgiven based on the original agreement. They signed the papers and they are big girls and boys aren’t they?
I go back to the root of the problem. It’s not the loan rates it’s the perpetual increase in the cost of education. Its also the rather easy access to money both foreign and domestic. It’s the influx of foreign students who can come here and pay full price, and it’s our allowance to have them fill slots in the hope they will stay and be productive, many do but I believe most do not. (a guess)
As sure as we have seen a bubble in housing that has still not corrected enough in many areas, we are seeing a education bubble. And lowering the rates doesn’t help it just delays. Students working at McDs with a masters in English or some other near useless degree is sad, but in the ever push to appease our children no one explained to them what they would be qualified to realistically earn after graduating or they failed to read journals on job and skill demands, again the fault of the person. After all if they went into a high demand field they would have the money to quickly pay their loans.
To top it off, why kids don’t use the military for school assistance is beyond me. In many cases it can teach many of the self-absorbed narcissists something of service. actually provide for teaming in a interesting job, and give them money and free schooling.
Once a contract is struck it must be honored by honest men, or the result is decay and erosion of trust.
What had been a discussion of interest rates was turned into an argument to force instant collection on the loans.
Again, these loans are like gold ~ to the lenders. Even with market based interest rates ALL education loans should be charged little more than 2 and 3/8 percent. The fact that most of them are charged FAR HIGHER rates is evidence of usury that should be criminalized.
2 3/8 would be akin to free money in fact it would be less than inflation. Do you believe the lenders need to lose money on Hesse products? Perhaps that would help dry up the already anemic % of private loans and force everyone to the arms of our loving patriarch.
My escalation of the discussion is premised on the concept that actions have consequences. And we need to get government the hell out of this crud, along with the fraud ridden housing sector.
All of them are tied together.
Bottom line, my opinion the rates should be back to a higher %.
You have not presented a valid case why we should keep them at zero or less than zero when factoring inflation. 6.8% is a very cheap loan, do you think it not fair? Is there some reason that the tax payers should subsidize with our money to keep them low? Do you think we need more junk degrees on the market in our wondrous economy? I ask you Why?
The value of money is not necessarily linked to price. It has a natural bid value.
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