House Committee on Education and Labor
U.S. House of Representatives

As soon as tomorrow, the House will vote on a measure – the College Cost Reduction Act (H.R. 2669) – allegedly crafted to balance fiscal responsibility with significant new aid for college students and their families.  The bill’s authors tout the legislation as a historic investment in student aid, but under the microscope, it’s clear that these claims fall flat.

In reality, the legislation is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for new entitlement spending at the long-term expense of American taxpayers.  The consideration of this legislation is particularly puzzling given Speaker Pelosi’s pledge last year for her new Majority leadership team to “work together to lead the House of Representatives with a commitment to integrity, to civility, and to fiscal responsibility.”

Here’s why:

The College Cost Reduction Act has been considered under the expedited procedure of budget reconciliation, which protects it from a potential filibuster in the Senate.  But even though reconciliation is intended for deficit reduction, this bill simply exploits the procedure.  It cuts roughly $18.58 billion over five years in payments to student loan providers, but simultaneously, it spends more than $17.13 billion during that same time period on multiple programs, including nine new areas of entitlement spending – an apparent net savings of less than nine percent.

These new entitlements include grants to Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian, and other minority-serving institutions, grants to institutions with low tuition, grants to institutions to create new teacher preparation programs, grants to philanthropic organizations, cooperative education grants…and on and on and on.

Worse yet, this onslaught of new entitlement spending will be exempt from an annual congressional review.  And history has proven that once Washington, D.C. creates a new entitlement program, it never, EVER dies.  As a result, these new entitlements will dwarf the token “savings” found in the Democrat bill in no time at all.

Rep. Howard P. Buck” McKeon (R-CA), Senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, speaking last month on the cleverly-titled College Cost Reduction Act summed it up best, saying, “By creating a bundle of new entitlement programs, complete with new bureaucracy, rules, and regulations, this bill places billions of dollars in new federal spending on auto-pilot with no accountability to taxpayers whatsoever.”

What’s more, other proposals included in the bill – such as the interest rate cut for certain college graduates included in the ill-fated Six for ’06 package of legislation passed earlier this year – will have even more explosive long-term costs that could amount to more than $32 billion over five years after an initial phase-down that would end during the 2012-2013 academic year.  And don’t forget, the cut to interest rates would not aid a single college student.  Rather, the benefit would be aimed squarely at those who, by definition, no longer attend college.

President Bush is expected to indicate his intent to veto this disingenuous legislation – and for good reason.  This bill marks a new step toward unchecked entitlement spending and another unfortunate step toward further hyperinflation in college costs.