MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Bailouts and Student Loan Debt
Interview
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Let`s go to Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont who is thinking about running for President, who has made several trips to Iowa.Senator, good to have you with us tonight.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I-VT), SENATE COMMITTEE ON VETERAN`S AFFAIRS
CHAIRMAN: Good to be with you, Ed.
SCHULTZ: You have been a vocal as vocal as anybody when it comes to student debt, what has to be done in your opinion?
SANDERS: Well Ed, I agree with everything that you said and the essence of what you said is that six years ago this country had a crisis because of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. Congress voted $700 billion to bail them out and by the way the Fed provided $16 trillion, Ed in all those zero interest loans.
We learned that because of an amendment I passed as part of the Dodd- Franklin -- the Dodd-Frank Financial Bill. Huge bailout for Wall Street and what you are asking right now is it a time when the middle class is collapsing, when hundreds of thousands of young people can`t afford to go to college, when millions are coming out of college deeply in debt, when we have the highest rate of child in poverty of any major country on earth are in those crises that we should respond to. And the answer is absolutely.
And if we respond to those crises, we`re going to have a better educated workforce, we`re going to be more competitive internationally, and we`re going to create more jobs. So what we need to do is put together the grassroots movement that says to the Congress, you know what, start paying attention to the working families of this country while losing ground every single day to the kids of this country who want a future and start paying attention just to 1 percent in Wall Street and corporate America and you`re absolutely right.
SCHULTZ: Well, it is a bridge that`s real far away. There`s no question about it. But the interest rates that these kids are paying is through the roof compared to basic rates. Why do we allow that to happen?
There is Republican -- There`s Republican kids out there right now that have got high interest rates. They got to feel like they`re getting shafted. Why do we have to do this for...
SANDERS: Now, I...
SCHULTZ: ... the financial industry when it really slows down our growth economically and holds people back from prosperity later in life?
SANDERS: Well, this is what we should know, 30 years ago Ed, the United States lead the world in the percentage of our people who graduated college. And we were the major economic power. Today, we are in 12th place in terms of percentage of our people who graduate in college precisely for the reasons that you gave. People can`t afford to go to college. They`re dropping out of college.
So it makes imminent sense to significantly lower interest rates. And what I would argue, if the Fed could charge every major financial institution and corporations and banks all over the world in a $16 trillion, low interest revolving loan fund, charge them almost nothing to loans, why can`t we do the same for young people in this country and to small businesses in this country? Why can`t we do that?
Why can`t we invest $1 trillion to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and put 13 million people back to work? Why can`t we do that? And the answer is pretty obvious. When Wall Street talks with all of their money and power, Congress listens. When working class kids talk about being saddled with these horrendous debts, who is listening?
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
SANDERS: How much power do they have? How much power the middle class families have?
So what we need to do is raise these issues, like making college affordable, significantly lowering the college interest rates on debt. We need to do that. We need to rally the people and there`s massive support for these ideas, Ed.
That`s the majority of the people support these ideas. But we going to get Congress to listen to what the people want.
SCHULTZ: This is the conversation that Progressives are going to have to have for whoever is going to be the candidate.
This has to be talked about because this is what it -- is affecting a majority of Americans. And I don`t know how -- we`d be remised if we didn`t have this conversation.
Senator, it`s always good to have you with us. I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont here on the Ed Show.
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