May 24, 2013

Elizabeth Warren Attacks House GOP on Student Loan Bill

Harry E. Walker/Mct/ZUMA Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) slammed a Republican student loan bill the House just approved that would allow interest rates on student debt to skyrocket.

“The student loan bill passed by House Republicans takes a bad situation and makes it worse,” she said in a statement.

On July 1, rates for federal student loans called Stafford loans are set to double from the current rate of 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. The GOP bill, which passed the House on a mostly party-line vote of 221 to 198, would allow interest rates on those loans to rise or fall from year to year with the government’s cost of borrowing, ending the system in which rates are fixed by law. Because market rates are low right now, the initial rate for those loans would be about 4.4 percent, but in coming years it could increase up to a cap of 8.5 percent.

Warren, who has proposed her own student loan plan which would cut student loan rates to near zero, accused Republican lawmakers of making students into cash cows:

Our students should not be a profit center for the government, and the July 1 deadline should not be turned into an opportunity to make more money at the expense of young Americans who are working hard to get an education. This is about our values. We should be investing in higher education to strengthen our economy and grow the middle class.

The student loan bill proposed by Warren, a version of which was introduced in the House by Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), is called the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act. Under Warren and Tierney’s plan, student loan interest would be cut to the low .75 percent interest rate that banks pay to the Federal Reserve for short-term loans. After a year, a longer-term student loan solution would be drawn up.

“If we can invest in big banks by giving them low interest rates on government loans,” Warren said in the statement, “we certainly can do the same to help students get an education.”

The Republican bill faces opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Obama has threatened to veto it.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate