The Wall Street Journal reports:
Democrats are planning to use the autumn budget reconciliation to bring America further down the road to a single-payer system—and not just in health care. Responding to a White House request, pending House legislation would make the federal government the dominant lender in the $100 billion market for student loans.An article well worth your time.
Not that Congress has traditionally kept its hands off this business. As in health care, intervention in the education market has gone hand-in-hand with rising costs. While government accounts for 41% of health-care spending, the feds guarantee or issue roughly 80% of student loans, subsidizing the rates and also offering a slew of grant programs. Not by coincidence, higher education costs have risen much faster even than in the health-care market. From 1982 through 2007, college tuition and fees increased 439% in nominal dollars, almost triple the rise in median family income, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Now the plan is to squeeze out what remains of the private market. Until now, there were three options for students needing to borrow for college: private loans, government loans and loans made by private lenders but guaranteed by the government. The plan for the fall is to outlaw this last category—more than half the current market—while tightening the noose around the small share that remains free and poses no threat to taxpayers. Simply put, we are watching in student loans exactly what ObamaCare's harshest critics have forecast for health care: a "public option" that ultimately destroys all competition.
