Name: Janine
Current Even Posting: #4
Topic: Education
Title of Article: Republicans in Senate Block Bill on Student Loan Rates
Author: Jonathan Weisman
Publication Name: NY Times

Date of Publication: May 8, 2012
Length of Article: 842

On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked consideration of a Democratic bill to prevent the doubling of some student loan interest rates, leaving the legislation in limbo less than two months before rates on subsidized federal loans are set to shoot upward. Since the start of this Congress in January of 2011, this has been the Senate Republicans' 21st successful filibuster of a Democratic bill. Republicans have blocked consideration of President Obama's full jobs proposal, as well as legislation repealing tax breaks for oil companies, helping local governments pay teachers and first responders, and setting a minimum tax rate for households earning more than a million dollars a year. Republicans say the measures were flawed and potentially harmful to the economic recovery.  But the student loan filibuster may be the highest-profile stalemate yet, because this one is not likely to be abandoned. Obama has elevated the issues by hammering Republicans on it for weeks. American students took out twice the value of student loans in 2011, about 112 billion dollars, as they did a decade before, after adjusting for inflation. Over all, Americans now owe about 1 trillion dollars in student loans. In 2010, such debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time.Before the vote, Senate Democrats arrayed college students to plead for a yes vote, including Clarise McCants, 21, a junior at Howard University in Washington who said she pulled herself out of a troubled neighborhood in North Philadelphia and relies on $13,500 in Stafford loans for her tuition.

Republicans have not always been so averse to closing the loophole that the Senate bill addresses. In 2004, when it emerged that John Edwards, then a vice-presidential hopeful, had classified himself as a “subchapter S corporation” to pay himself dividends rather than income, conservatives criticized him for avoiding payroll taxes.But the Democratic line of attack has been complicated by the House's actions. Shrugging off a veto threat, the House passed an extension of the subsidized rate last month, paid for with the preventive health care fund. Thirteen Democrats voted for the bill, making up for the 30 Republicans who voted no because they opposed federal subsidies for an interest rate that they believed should be set by market forces. Those Democratic defections put the House bill over the top and fortified Republican arguments that the Senate Democrats were now to blame for the stalemate. Republicans made clear they would go on offense, blaming Democrats if interest rates doubled July 1.