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Speaking on the Senate floor in Washington this week, Durbin
blasted the Trump administration’s proposal to shift student
loan cases from the Department of Education to the Small
Business Administration.
“I want to make sure the Department of Education is efficient. I
want to make sure that it’s responsive, but the notion that
we’re going to shift all the student loans to the SBA is an
example of someone who didn’t think it through. With fewer
employees at that agency, they’ll be unable to do the the job
which they were assigned the responsibility in doing and change
the lives of a lot of American students in the process,” Durbin
said.
Musk said in an interview with Fox News that the Small Business
Administration was giving out loans to babies, and the loans
were fraudulent.
“They do terrible things. They actually will see that a kid’s
been born. They will steal that kid’s Social Security number,
they’ll take out a loan and then leave that kid with a bad
credit rating,” Musk said.
The fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Small Business
Administration is $971 million in discretionary budget
authority.
Durbin also blasted the Trump administration Wednesday at a
Senate forum on the National Institutes of Health. Trump and
Musk have moved to reduce spending and cut personnel at the NIH.
“Think about that moment, which many of us have faced and others
have heard about over and over again, when the doctor says, ‘And
here’s the diagnosis.’ And you gulp and you say, ‘Is there
anything we can do? Is there a medicine, is there a surgery, is
there a treatment?’ And you pray to God that some researcher at
NIH found a breakthrough that’s gonna give you or someone you
love a chance,” Durbin said.
The NIH had a budget of more than $47 billion in fiscal year
2024. The agency faced scrutiny after the COVID-19 pandemic due
to allegations of taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research in
China.
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