This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, May 6, 2012 - U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told a group of local college students Sunday that she had their financial back and would continue to support federal spending for college loans and grants – unlike her Republican rivals, she said, who oppose such aid because they don’t understand why it’s important.
“When they were asked about student loans and whether or not they supported keeping the interest rates low on student loans, they basically said … let the private sector do this,” McCaskill said during the campaign event at Blueberry Hill in University City. “They kind of have this mantra, ‘If the government does it, the government shouldn’t be doing it.’ ”
If that were the case, McCaskill said, most banks wouldn’t lend money for student loans because most students and their families don’t have the collateral. That’s why, she said, the federal government had for decades been guaranteeing the student loans so that banks would lend the money.
The federal government cut out the banks as the middlemen in 2010, she added, because it saved taxpayers $71 billion over 10 years in fees paid to banks.
A large chunk of the savings, McCaskill continued, has been used to increase the size and number of the federal Pell Grants.
In contrast, she said, the budget proposal embraced by Republicans would cut $171 billion out of the Pell Grant program.
The students, as they spoke, registered their concern as several outlined their current situation – in which many owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.
One student said she was shocked to hear one conservative commentator say that a student shouldn’t take out loans greater than what the student would earn during a first year of employment after college. Annual tuition at many schools tops likely first-year pay, she said.
McCaskill asserted that the GOP approach would contribute to “the erosion of the middle class’’ and further create a nation of haves and have-nots – in education as well as income.
“I think this (student loan) investment is critical to our economy, critical to our future,” the senator said
The campaign event attracted limited news coverage. It also highlighted McCaskill’s quandary as she attempts to defend and explain her support for some federal spending amid continued TV ad attacks from Republicans and allied SuperPACs. The crux of the attacks is that she is a big-spending Democrat who has helped increase the federal debt.
Sunday’s event was heavy on financial details and short on the pithy sound bites that often are easier to sell to the general public.
McCaskill, for example, told the students -- as she has told other groups -- that she agrees that federal spending needs to be trimmed, but that there are right and wrong ways to do it.
She asserted that Republicans are continuing to clamor for the wrong kind of cuts in programs that help students, the elderly, the poor and the middle class, while also calling for continued tax breaks for the wealthy and major corporations.
The debate over student loan interest rates exemplifies her problem. To pay for keeping the rates low, Republicans have proposed cutting proposed federal spending on certain health care programs, including some that provide preventive care for women.
McCaskill supports an alternative that would eliminate a tax break used by certain types of professional businesses, such as law firms. Helping people understand the tax break required an explanatory summary sheet from her campaign – and likely won’t work in a TV spot.
Senator snags Blunt's old campaign bus
During an interview afterward, McCaskill offered a bit of news that was easier to explain and – she chuckled – will likely attract more press attention.
She’s about to hit the road in a new campaign bus that has even more “bells and whistles” than the old one she leased back in 2006.
But Republicans might be reluctant to jab McCaskill over her latest leased acquisition because the bus covered a lot of miles in 2010 – as the campaign transport for now-U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
McCaskill said that as she was looking at vehicles, the dealer directed her to the heavily equipped bus that he said had been used by Blunt in his successful contest against Democrat Robin Carnahan, Missouri’s secretary of state.
“We got a really good deal on it,” McCaskill said with a chuckle. “We’re taking Senator Blunt’s leftovers.”
The bus is now being “wrapped” with a McCaskill campaign cover, but should be on the road – with McCaskill on board – within weeks, she said.
No backing for Clay, Carnahan or other Democrats
McCaskill also reaffirmed that she has no plans to make an endorsement in the already nasty contest between U.S. Reps. William Lacy Clay and Russ Carnahan – two St. Louis Democrats tossed by redistricting into the same district.
She also won’t endorse anyone in the crowded Democratic field running for lieutenant governor.
“I’m a little busy,” McCaskill said pointedly. “I’ve had $4.3 million in ads spent against me so far. I do not have the time to get involved in any other primaries.”
Any spare time, she plans to spend aboard Blunt’s old bus.
