Alert

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) released the following statement today regarding the Senate’s vote against the “Interest Rate Reduction Act,” a responsible solution to extend reduced student loan interest rates and offset the cost with unspent ObamaCare funds:

“College students and recent college graduates face fewer job opportunities and less income in the Obama economy. Instead of compounding the problem with more bad policies that raise taxes on small businesses and raid Social Security and Medicare, we must work together to prevent a rate increase on students, while making it easier for job creators to hire them when they graduate.

“I will continue to support a common-sense, bipartisan solution to extend the reduced interest rates for one year and boost job creation, while paying for it responsibly. That way we can give Congress time to develop a long-term, sustainable solution that benefits both students and taxpayers.”

Blunt cosponsored the “Interest Rate Reduction Act,” introduced by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (Tenn.). This bill ends a controversial ObamaCare slush fund and applies the savings to deficit reduction and a stopgap measure to prevent a rate increase on new subsidized Stafford college loans.

Meanwhile, a study from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University found that “only 49% of graduates from the classes of 2009 to 2011 had found a full-time job within a year of finishing school.”

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