What I Said, What The Newspaper Imagined, And What The Facts Are

[Geee]

RightWisconsin:

Earlier this week, the self-appointed "Arbiters of Truth” at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s “PolitiFACT Wisconsin” felt the need to grade a recent statement made by Wisconsin senior U.S. Senator Ron Johnson regarding the cost of college. The newspaper gave his remarks a “Mostly False” rating.

 

Here is Johnson’s response to their findings.

 

It’s a dirty trick that the federal government has played on young Americans, luring them into about a trillion dollars of student debt. This readily available money has insulated students from the cost of college, sparing colleges from market pressures that might have restrained cost increases that have long outpaced inflation.

 

Worse have been proposals to shift the costs of that debt repayment from students who borrowed too heavily to the taxpayer. Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushed one last spring, for example. It would have permitted borrowers to refinance students loans into new government loans at lower interest rates. I voted against it because it was a bad idea. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out:

 

“The Congressional Budget Office says the Warren bill would increase federal spending by $58 billion over a decade. But as CBO has repeatedly warned, its official scores by law must underrate the risk of defaults in such federal loan programs, so who knows what this latest election-year pander to young voters will ultimately cost.”

 

[Valin]

 

Here it’s important to understand how the student loan programs work.

 

The system is structured to be self-sufficient and even generate revenue. That is, the costs of administering the program are covered by loan repayments, so it’s not part of the general fund budget that is picked up by average taxpayers.

 

The Department of Education budget draws on funds from the Treasury to shoulder the costs of subsidized loans, grants, and the repayment of some loans. This money from the Treasury is indirectly funded by taxpayers, Fansmith said.

 

This is self-sufficient and even generate revenue?