Joe Sestak, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, delivered a speech about the recent nuclear arms agreement with Iran during a speech at a Center City Philadelphia law firm. He backs the agreement over sanctions and air strikes.
Sestak expressed his cautious support for the Iranian agreement, which delays Iran from having nuclear-bomb grade material from 30 days to over a year.
“I am supportive of the nuclear agreement with Iran if for no other reason than Iran could have bomb-grade material for a nuclear weapon within 30 days of today,” he said. “This agreement sets back that clock for at least one year, if not 15 years, by diluting the uranium and placing centrifuges in storage. And for those who know something about centrifuges, they degrade in storage.
“At the sole Iranian heavy-water reactor at Arak, all ability to produce bomb-grade plutonium will be removed. Iran will also stop all uranium enrichment activities at Fordow — a deep-underground facility that we cannot destroy nor have been able to inspect, until now.”
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Meanwhile, Sestak discussed the education chapter of his book at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught as a professor after he left Congress.
Sestak spoke about what he called the “unacceptably unaffordable” cost of higher education, and how tuition rose 73 percent from 1999 to 2009 as median family income fell by 7 percent over that period.
Today, there are about 40 million Americans with at least one open student loan, with an average debt of $29,400 for bachelor’s degree graduates. Total student loan debt is at $1.2 trillion, accounting for more debt than America’s auto loans and credit cards.
Sestak explained, as a result of being saddled with such a high cost for an education, today’s college graduates take longer to purchase homes, are less likely to buy a car, contribute less to overall consumer spending, are less likely to form a small business, and more likely to live with parents.
Sestak said that 18-year-olds should not be saddled with decades of debt caused by the inefficiencies and inflexibility of colleges.
Student loans take an average of 13.4 years to repay.
“When I was a professor at colleges and universities across Pennsylvania, I was concerned that the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University placed one and two on the nationwide list for highest in-state tuition for four-year public universities,” Joe said. “Too many colleges and universities are terrible at managing costs and accustomed to simply passing the expenses along to students in the form of higher tuition and fees.” Φ
