Politics v. Policy

The Student National Loan Debt is predicted to hit the $1 trillion mark by early May.  Yes, that's one with 12 zeros after it: $1,000,000,000,000. 

In Washington today, a bill was approved to prevent student loan rates from doubling on July 1, 2012.  In a 215-195 vote, the Senate voted to keep interest rates at 3.4% for another year, and not raising it up to 6.8%.

The vote on the bill was supposed to be fairly simply and bipartisan (which is rare nowadays).  It seemed to be a clear agreement -- both Republicans and Democrats wanted to pass the bill.

They understand that students are working hard in school, and working hard after school to find a job -- but in the economy in the way that it is today -- that is not as easy as it was 10 years ago.  Why is it so important that the Senate recognizes this?  So that they do not raise interest rates on the population of the country that is: (1) already in massive debt, and (2) having the most difficulties finding jobs.  This is not the most desirable combination.

Controversy came right before the vote, when the White House staff said that President Obama was threatening to veto the measure because he did not like the way that the Republicans wanted to pay for it.  The House Republicans plan was to cut spending in order to make up for the money lost to student loan debt.  The Senate Democrats, however, would rather pay for it by creating more loopholes in the oil.

The Bipartisan Harmony that is so rare in this day and age was, again, disturbed.

If Congress did not take action today, student loan interest would have doubled starting July 1st.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner got extremely passionate, and even emotional at some points, regarding this issue. 

The video below shows Speaker Boehner giving a speech before the vote in Senate:

The main point of his speech is pointing out the absolute absurdity of the "fight" over this bill.  Since there was no long-term plan put into place, everyone knows that this short-tern policy is the best way to give the committee time to focus on a long-term solution to this problem.  The question is, then: Why can't we all finally just agree on this one thing?

His conclusion was simple:  What's driving the fight over this student loan bill is politics, not policy.

Luckily, student loan debt rates will be kept at 3.4% percent because the Senate voted in favor of the measure to keep student loan interest rates lows.

I am confident that all college students and graduates taking out loans for their education are happy that the Senate made the decision not to double interest rates July 1st.

I am also personally happy to see the Senate finally pass a bill without worrying about it's affect on politics, for once (although it was a close call when Obama threatened to Veto the bill).

We can only hope that the Senate will continue to fight for students, finding a long-term solution to the $1 trillion national student loan debt our country is currently facing.