Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh severely misrepresented several years of student loan-related legislation in an attempt to smear Democrats while pushing yet another unfounded conspiracy.

On July 1, interest rates on government-sponsored Stafford Loans automatically doubled from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. Myriad provisions to avoid the rate hike have been advocated by various caucuses in the House and Senate, as well as by the White House.

On the July 1 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh stated that “it was Democrat legislation that doubled the student loan interest rate, 3.4 to 6.8 percent.” He went on to claim that, originally, “Democrats intentionally wrote law to make student loan interest rates double in an election year” so they could “blame it on the Republicans.”

While Limbaugh attempted to pin the automatic rate hike solely on Democrats, the legislation in question -- the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 -- passed both houses of Congress with broad bipartisan support. On September 7, 2007, the bill passed 292-97 in the House of Representatives with 77 Republican votes before passing 79-12 in the Senate with 33 Republican votes. The legislation did not face so much as a cloture motion from the Republican minority.

Limbaugh's claim that House and Senate Democrats intentionally designed the bill to raise interest rates to previous levels during an election year to help Democrats' election prospects in 2012 is also false. The final rate expiration date specified in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 was negotiated with Republicans to go into effect on July 1, 2012 - the original Democratic drafts had the rate cut expiring in 2013.

Last summer, near the height of the election, President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney both lobbied Congress to delay the rate hike for twelve months specifically to avoid making student loan rates an election issue, according to The Washington Post.

Finally, after falsely claiming that Democrats would use the returning issue of student loan rates as a “bludgeon” against Republicans, Limbaugh reiterated a long-debunked claim that the increased revenue from a student loan rate increase would go to fund Obamacare, claiming, “The bottom line is that the student loan rate is going to double.  It's gonna go from 3.4% to 6.8%, and here's the reason why:  Congress has figured out they need that additional money to spend on Obamacare. ”