Latest Student Loan Debacle Is Ultimate Example of Trump's Campaign Con
Last October, just about a week after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood "pussy" tape, Donald Trump gave a surprising speech in Columbus, Ohio.
While the entire Republican Party was running sideways away from his cratering campaign, Trump was scrambling to find a way back in the race. One of his strategies – and I remember watching this on the trail – was to tack back to the populist themes he'd used to great effect in the Republican primaries.
In Columbus, with Hillary Clinton running away with the election, Trump unveiled what even The Washington Post described as a "pretty radical student debt plan." The basic idea was income-based repayment capped at 12.5 percent, then total loan forgiveness after 15 years of payments.
"Students should not be asked to pay more on the debt than they can afford," Trump said. "And the debt should not be an albatross around their necks for the rest of their lives."
Trump hasn't gone back on that proposal, not exactly, anyway. The 12.5 percent-times-15-years concept was indeed part of a plan he submitted this past summer, at least for undergraduates.
But that same plan proposed a wipeout of five other existing income-based repayment plans, and grad students would be pushed into a harsher program requiring payments for 30 years.
Moving forward, Trump and the Republican Party have all but buried the campaign-trail "fairly radical" plan under a series of other student-bashing decisions.
On Monday, Fortune reported that Department of Education head Betsy DeVos is seeking to end a program to cancel the debt of students defrauded by ripoff diploma-mill universities.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-new-student-loan-debacle-and-trumps-campaign-con-w513929?utm_source=rsnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=121217_16
