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Pirates’ Starling Marte suspended 80 games for PEDs

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Their view: A solution to eliminate chemical weapons

<p>President Barack Obama&#8217;sEducation Department said defaulting borrowers who quickly got their federally guaranteed student loans back on track couldn&#8217;t be slammed with a 16 percent collection fee. Last month, President Donald Trump&#8217;sEducation Department said: Never mind.</p><p>It thus offered a windfall to the private companies that get to help run this government program. But it added to the burden of struggling borrowers.</p><p>The Obama administration set out its rule in a &#8220;Dear Colleague&#8221; letter in 2015. So, unlike a formal regulation, the rule didn&#8217;t have to be offered for public comment before it was issued. And that, the Trump administration said in the &#8220;Dear Colleague&#8221; letter rescinding the rule, was the problem: The rule &#8220;would have benefited from public input.&#8221;</p><p>Important regulations should go through the formal regulatory process. The public should be able to comment. But if the new administration&#8217;s only complaint about this fee was procedural, it should have said it was launching the formal process to re-issue the rule.</p><p>The public certainly commented when the rule was withdrawn. The comments were informal, but clear and powerful: The withdrawal of the rule generated so much outcry that the companies that are now allowed to charge the fee &#8212; known as guarantee agencies &#8212; quickly announced they won&#8217;t actually charge it.</p><p>That outcry was justified. This fee is inhumane: The people subject to it are already struggling with debt. Making the debt larger makes their problem worse.</p><p>The law gives defaulting borrowers one shot to rehabilitate their loans &#8212; and even arrange payment terms based on their income. The point of that is to let them fix the mistake they made by defaulting. It defeats the purpose to add a huge surcharge.</p><p>There&#8217;s no good reason to let the agencies charge so much. Collecting from people who quickly enter repayment agreements and keep them is not difficult or expensive. And there&#8217;s no free-market argument here: This isn&#8217;t a private contract; it&#8217;s a government program 26 companies are allowed to make money on. The question isn&#8217;t why regulate &#8212; it&#8217;s why not have the government take over the whole mess.</p><p>The Trump administration invited government contractors to try to squeeze even more money out of people who were already having trouble paying what they owe. This is unconscionable.</p><p>&#8212; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</p><style>
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Their view: Paying off student debt is hard enough