The policy eliminates the Department of Education but keeps aspects that deal with student loans, he said.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is accusing many in the news media of “demagoguery” for making his student loan plan seem more radical than it is, and dismissed the notion that his policies are “reckless.”


“Anytime someone dares to seriously address the major problems posed to us by a government program, many in the news media accuse that person of wanting to hurt citizens in a reckless manner,” Paul said Friday in an editorial for USA Today. “The demagoguery makes solving our problems even harder.”

In the wake of an interview Sunday on “Meet the Press,” where he said that he would “eventually” abolish federal aid for education, Paul expressed frustration that his “Restore America” budget plan was being described as calling for the immediate elimination of student loans.

Instead, he says, his policies would eliminate the Department of Education but would keep the aspects of the department that deal with student loans.

“In my budget, Social Security, Medicare, — and yes, student loans — are not cut in any way for those currently receiving such services or for those who will be in the near future,” Paul said in the editorial.

It is only in the longer term, when the economy is healthy enough, that he would begin a transition to ending federal student aid, which he said would help alleviate the “staggering” problem of student loans.

“I want to help our students, but I believe we will assist them the most by eventually transitioning student aid away from the inefficient and ineffective federal government and back to local governments and private market-based solutions — which simply work better,” Paul writes.

The Texas congressman expressed his concern that demagoguery was keeping Americans from making the difficult choices needed to veer away from closing in “on a $15 trillion national debt.”

In his editorial, Paul said that “frightening Americans anytime someone dares to offer serious solutions is the easiest way to make sure there is never any transition, never any real reform, and never any recovery.”