Pete Hoesktra, Michigan Senate Candidate, Wants To 'Kill Federal Student Loans' [View all]

[Galraedia]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- A video of Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra vowing to end all federal student loan programs has surfaced on YouTube, putting the Michigan conservative on the radical fringe of a hot-button 2012 campaign issue.

Speaking before a Tea Party audience in January, the newly surfaced video shows Hoekstra falsely claiming that President Barack Obama "federalized all the student loan programs," and boasting that, "I tried to kill federal student loans for 18 years. Loans are something that can be done by the private sector."

Watch the video, taken by a Democratic source:

Hoekstra's remarks referred to a student loan reform bill that Obama signed in March 2010 as part of his administration's health-care reform legislation. The student loan initiatives that Hoekstra attacks have always been "federal" -- in so far as they have been backed by federal government guarantees for as long as the programs have existed.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/pete-hoesktra-michigan-federal-student-loans_n_1515160.html?ref=politics