TPMDC Student loan reform
Student loan reform
After Brief Detour, Senate GOP Returns To Obstruction
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Senate Republicans' Tuesday filibuster of a Democratic bill to avert a student loan interest rate hike signals a return to familiar territory for the party. The move comes after a brief detour that spurred speculation about whether, with the general election in full swing, Republicans were ready to ease up when it comes to blocking hot-button issues.
The context is an effort by the GOP -- and its presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney -- to save face with key voting constituencies that strongly favor Democrats and could swing the election: women, young voters and Hispanics.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, Student Loans, Student loan reform
In the last weeks of winter and early weeks of spring the national political discourse has been whipsawed by a series of disjointed news stories, seemingly bereft of real meaning, let alone any connection to the country's immediate needs.
There was the contraception fight and its foil, the battle for religious liberty. There were slut wars and mommy wars. A skirmish between political flacks even turned into a semi-serious debate about whether Mitt Romney -- who once strapped a dog to the roof of his car for a long drive to Canada -- is a better friend to canines than President Obama -- who ate dog meat when he was a young child living in Indonesia.
On Capitol Hill last week, Republicans narrowly avoided a Democratic trap that nonetheless resulted in 31 male Republicans voting against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Simultaneously the parties continued to skirmish over how to prevent an automatic spike in student loan interest rates, and who's at fault for putting young up-and-comers in financial jeopardy in the first place.
If you're a casual news consumer, the natural response to these schizophrenic politics is "WTF?!" Even political junkies have a hard time making sense of it. But there's a signal buried in all this noise -- several, in fact. And as clearly as any polling data, they're alerting us to the factional politics that will decide what's likely to be a very close election.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: 2012, 2012 elections, Barack Obama, Brian Schweitzer, David Axelrod, Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt Romney, Student loan reform, Violence Against Women Act
Chuck Schumer
Dems Squeeze GOP Over Taxing Wealthy To Pay For Affordable Student Loans
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Now that the GOP has dropped its politically untenable objection to extending low-interest student loans, the legislative battle has entered a familiar realm, just weeks ahead of a scheduled rate hike: How should Congress pay for keeping the loans cheap?
It's familiar terrain for observers of the payroll tax fight, which ended with both parties simply agreeing not to pay for the holiday at all. But before they reached that point, the parties bickered over various financing schemes, while pushing ideologically opposed offsets. Republicans wanted cuts to domestic support programs, Democrats wanted to raise income taxes on income over $1 million a year.
This time around, though, the Democrats' opening bid is different -- and they argue that it reflects their willingness to set politics aside and extend the loan rates, currently set to double at the end of June, without a fight, while Republicans try use the coming cliff to eat away at President Obama's health care law.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Buffett Rule, Bush Tax Cuts, Chuck Schumer, Education, Mitch McConnell, Student Loans, Student loan reform, Tax Cuts, Taxes
Barack Obama
Decoding The Spin From Dems, GOP In Student Loan Battle
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama
A battle over how to avert a student loan interest rate hike is breeding political opportunism on both sides of the divide. Republicans are trying to use to occasion to slice off a piece of "Obamacare," and Democrats are turning it into another debate about women's health.
Leaders of both parties want to freeze existing rates on federally-subsidized student loans. House Republicans voted Friday to do so by repealing the health care reform law's currently $10 billion prevention and public health fund. The White House has threatened veto and Democrats are protesting the pay-for.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, John Boehner, Student loan reform
Student loan reform
What The Fight Over Student Loans Is Really About
In a reprise of the winter fight over the payroll tax cut, Republicans are now reluctantly agreeing to support something that just weeks ago they strongly opposed: preventing student loan interest rates from doubling later this year.
It's an issue Republicans fear will fire up the youth vote -- a key Democratic constituency -- and in an effort to keep that bloc from flocking back to President Obama in November they're attempting to bigfoot Democrats on their own issue.
But the Republicans' strategy threatens to tear at existing divisions within the party, and exposes them once again to political repercussions over their unwillingness to finance any popular policies by raising taxes on wealthy people.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, John Boehner, Medicare, Mitch McConnell, Payroll Tax Cut, Student loan reform
Barack Obama
Will Romney Become Obama's Weapon Against The GOP?
President Barack Obama and Senior Adviser David Axelrod
Mitt Romney lurched ever closer to the political center Monday, in a move that presages both dramatic implications on Capitol Hill and growing tensions between Romney and his GOP allies in Congress.
We've seen several signs that Romney is recalibrating for the general election in recent weeks -- he tacitly backed Democrats' equal-pay law and now articulates more widely his support for the principle behind the DREAM Act. But for the first time Monday, he waded into an ongoing legislative battle -- over student loans -- and sided with President Obama and the Democrats against House and Senate Republicans.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, DREAM Act, John Kline, Medicare, Mitt Romney, Student loan reform
John Kline
GOP Opposes Obama's Decision To Lower Student Loan Payments by 5%
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, isn't happy with President Obama's executive action aimed at helping students pay back college loans.
House Republicans, he said, believe the presidential push to scale back students' monthly payments will only increase overall student debt and do nothing to curb unemployment.
"Sadly, the President has once again chosen to put politics before policy, touting a plan that will do nothing to help the nation's unemployed workers," Kline said in a statement Wednesday.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, House Republicans, John Kline, Occupy Wall Street, Student loan reform, White House
Health Care
Senate Health Committee Chairman: 'We'll Have The Votes' To Pass Final Bill
President Barack Obama and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
Democratic Senators are sounding quite confident that these really are the last, final votes on health care reform and that something will be sent to President Obama's desk for a signature soon. "We'll have the votes to pass this," Sen. Tom Harkin told reporters on a conference call late yesterday, referring to the Senate. He also particularly praised Speaker Nancy Pelosi for pulling in wavering Democrats to secure the needed 216 votes in the House.
"Speaker Pelosi has just done a magnificent job, she has a very tough job keeping all of her troops lined up and it's been amazing to watch her do this," said Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. (Despite a looming Sunday afternoon vote, she's not there yet, though.)
Is Harkin worried that something could go wrong and the Senate wouldn't pass the final legislation? Nope. He said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has the 50 votes he needs and isn't sweating it. I asked Harkin about Sen. Evan Bayh's objections to including student loan legislation in the health care bill, and he said he wasn't worried.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Evan Bayh, Health Care, Student loan reform, Tom Harkin
