Rick Hess of AEI contextualizes the recent controversy over federally subsidized Stafford loans, a program he describes as a middle-class entitlement quite different from Pell grants aimed ay poor students:

For those who don’t eagerly track the ins and outs of federally subsidized student loans, here’s the deal: Five years ago, in a piece of cheap political theater, Democrats in Congress wrote an additional sweetener for federally subsidized Stafford loans into the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. Beyond offering college loans at a guaranteed rate of 6.8 percent, Congress temporarily dropped the undergraduate rate as low as 3.4 percent. The fixed rate was demanded by student-loan advocates who disliked the fact that interest rates fluctuate and wanted the feds to offer certainty (and understood that the rates would have to be high enough that they wouldn’t drain the U.S. Treasury). The Bush administration, which never worried about spending a couple billion more, cheerfully went along for the ride.
Now, the temporary 3.4 percent is set to naturally expire, with undergraduate Stafford loans reverting to the standard 6.8 percent rate. The impact? Not so much. U.S. PIRG, the big “student advocacy” lobbying outfit, calculates that the change would cost the average new borrower $2,800 over a ten-year repayment term. That’s about $25 a month. Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin has pegged the impact at $7 a month.
Meanwhile, the projected hit to the federal debt is projected at $30 billion over five years.

And Rick is particularly critical of Mitt Romney, who joined President Obama in calling for an extension despite his sharp criticisms of President Obama’s turn towards a “government-centered society.” The central problem is that making the case against the increased subsidy is extremely difficult in a world of limited attention spans. But of course that is true of making the case against any subsidy. Romney’s decision definitely undermines the notion that he is an extreme right-wing ideologue, which is at the heart of the president’s reelection campaign. It also undermines the notion that he is willing to take a political hit to make the case against excessive spending.