College students struggling to pay off their student loans would see their interest rates plunge from 6.8 percent to 5.3 percent if not for President Obama’s signature healthcare law — Obamacare and other federal programs, according to veteran political analyst and best-selling author Dick Morris.
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“The 16 million American students who now have student loans are paying for Obamacare out of their meagre incomes just at the point when they graduate from college and need funds to start their lives, buy their first homes and begin a family,” asserts Morris in an op-ed that appeared in
The Hill.
Citing Congressional Budget Office figures, Morris said that some $8.7 billion in profits from student loans are being diverted to pay for Obamacare while another $10.3 billion in profits are put toward the federal debt, and $36 billion go to Pell Scholarship grants.
“For the administration to raid their wallets at this vulnerable time in their lives shows a level of arrogance and unconcern that is truly outrageous and stunning,” penned Morris. “That 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his vice presidential pick Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., did not jump on this issue is beyond belief.”
Morris noted that unlike other kinds of loans, student borrowers cannot discharge their loan payments in bankruptcy and will have to live with stained credit reports “forever” if they leave such educational loans unpaid.
Crediting Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, Morris said that the federal government borrows funds for the student loan program at 2.8 percent and then lends the funds to students at 6.8 percent.
“Undoubtedly, few students know of this rip-off. If they did, they would curse Obama with each stroke of the pen they use to pay off the staggering obligations of student debt,” said Morris. “The entire policy of student loans assures a kind of indentured servitude for our college graduates, and to piggy back on this burden the costs of Obamacare is quite extraordinary.”
Morris urged fellow Republicans to jump on the issue.
“How can President Obama and the Democrats hope to win the votes of those students burdened with loans when they are, in effect, directly taxing them to pay for Obamacare? The president has strayed so far from his campaign commitment not to raise taxes on the middle class that it is laughable to recall these days his promise then,” Morris explained. “But to tax students struggling to pay loans an extra 4 percent interest and then to divert a good portion of that money to pay for his healthcare reform is beyond belief.”
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