(Washington, D.C.) Reductions in federal spending are needed to balance the nation’s budget, but cuts to student loans should be the last avenue considered, Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun said recently in an interview with Illinois college journalists.

By Gus Bode

Moseley-Braun, D-Illinois, said cuts to the federally funded direct student loan program being considered by Congress would be unnecessary if other areas, such as defense spending, are scaled down first.

The senator fielded questions in her Washington office Friday from Illinois university newspaper reporters regarding potential cuts to the direct student loan program.

That congress is considering cuts to the direct student loan program in order to balance the budget is stupid, short-sighted and counterproductive, Moseley-Braun said. I am vehemently opposed to these cuts.

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The U.S. House of Representatives has proposed eliminating the direct student loan program, a method where student loans are mailed to students rather than being obtained through banks or college bursar offices. The Senate has proposed capping the number of total schools participating in the program nation-wide at 20 percent. There are currently 1,350 universities that participate in the program.

Moseley-Braun said at the interview Friday that a joint congressional committee was considering a compromise between the House and the Senate of a 10-percent cap on schools that can participate in the program. SIUC administrators have said cuts to the program may prevent students at the University from receiving direct student loans.

While she said the compromise would be better than eliminating the program, Moseley-Braun said she is still not satisfied.

It’s kind of like the song, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,’ Moseley-Braun said. Only they (Congress) are looking for cuts in all the wrong places.

Moseley-Braun said making cuts in defense spending and government bureaucracy would be more prudent than eliminating educational opportunities for college students.

Why not start with defense spending? she said. We are currently giving the pentagon $7 billion more than they have even said they need. We need to ask why we are giving them funds that they are not even asking for.

Moseley-Braun said that all government agency offices could also be scaled down rather than cutting direct student loans.

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The budgets for each agency could be cut by at least 10 percent, and it wouldn’t kill them, she said. They should be able to learn ways to be more frugal. What I’m talking about is a spending scalpel, not a spending ax. There are ways to balance the budget without requiring such draconian measures.

Moseley-Braun said she was skeptical that Congress would reach an equitable agreement on the fate of student loans or a balanced budget because of an increase in partisan conflict between Republicans and Democrats.

Several of my colleagues running for president and the politicization function of an upcoming presidential election have created a tug-of-war between the parties, she said. People around Congress say it is more partisan now than they can ever remember.

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