Senate Republicans Block Bill on Student Loan Rates

[alp227]

Source: New York Times

Senate Republicans on Tuesday 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.

Along party lines, the Senate voted 52 to 45, failing to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to beat back a filibuster and begin debating the measure. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the retiring moderate Republican from Maine, voted present.

Republicans said they wanted to extend Democratic legislation passed in 2007 that temporarily reduced interest rates for the low- or middle-income undergraduates who receive subsidized Stafford loans to 3.4 percent from 6.8 percent.

But they oppose the Senate Democrats’ proposal to pay for a one-year extension by changing tax law that currently allows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes by classifying their pay as dividends, not cash income.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/us/politics/senate-republicans-block-bill-on-student-loan-rates.html

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. However, I know that Americans, even Democrats, will blame the president for this!

[Crow73]

2. When don't they?

It has been up is down with these freaks for over a decade now.

[Tx4obama]

3. Here's a link to the roll call

Reid (D-NV) HAD TO vote no (due to procedural rules) in order to be able to bring the bill to the floor again in the future.

Kirk (R-IL) and Lugar (R-IN) didn't vote.

Here: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00089

[earthside]

4. Once again ... the filibuster.

52 yes votes -- that is a majority.

If Harry Reid had any guts he would use whatever parliamentary maneuvering it takes to call up a rules change vote to get rid of this anti-democratic rule.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. Yep

+1

[gateley]

8. I know -- how has this been allowed to become the SOP? Is there nothing we can do??

[musiclawyer]

11. If Reid does not change filibuster rule on day one next term, he is a fool

and guilty of malpractice of historic proportions.

I think we WILL keep the senate. If so, it will be totallly in democratic hands whether or not to change the filibuster rule. The decision is not hard. It already should be made, and this is just one of many example why.

And don't tell me "oh, someday we will be in the minority." That's a canard. As you are crouched in the corner of your bedroom and a rapist is knocking down your door in the middle of the night ready to assault you, you do not think, "oh I better not use this shotgun because he might use it against me."

[LarryNM]

17. Our "Peculiar Institution" - the Filibuster, and The Electoral College n/t

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Aw just borrow money from your parents - Willard Romney.

[Iliyah]

7. Most Americans will not

blame Pres O but congress, simple fact. The insane party of no hopefully will lose big in November 2012.

[Ed Suspicious]

9. As a student going into his second year of undergrad and planning for a trip to law school,

this is disturbing. Look, there is no market driven reason for student loan interest to be so high. There is no option for bankruptcy with student debt. Theses creeps are messing with my life and I'm tired of it.

[jtuck004]

12. I wonder if pictures of people who want to take more money out of students pockets

could be printed, with their phone numbers and emails, suggestions that one tell them what they think.

Handouts, or maybe big cigarette rolling papers stuck all over campuses...

Then again, not sure who would stand the cost...

[DallasNE]

10. Sen. Snowe Showed No Guts

Because 60 votes are needed to end the filibuster a vote of present is identical to a vote of no. It is totally dishonest and shows no guts. In other words, Sen. Snowe is still part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

[groundloop]

13. Where's a list of votes on this?

I'm pretty sure my tea-bagger senators voted no, but I'd like to be certain before I send them a scathing email.

[alp227]

14. at reply 3

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=116321

[sarcasmo]

15. Didn't 52 used to be enough?

[24601]

18. Actually, it used to be more difficult, but there are exceptions. AUMF resulutions for example

cannot be blocked. I believe budget resolutions get an up or down vote.

I suppose if it were up to me, the Constitution would say that Presidential nominations are approved automatically in 90 days unless a majority of the Senate votes against consent.

Here's some history:

"But filibusters didn't start just recently... it goes all the way back to our Founding Fathers. To break a log jam at the Constitutional Convention, their compromise was this: The House of Representatives would be the popular body representing the will of the people, while the Senate, as the deliberative body, would protect small states and minority views."

"For the first 130 years of our nation, senators believed that meant giving each member an unlimited right to speak. Ending a debate to take a vote or conduct senate business required the approval of everybody.
In 1917, however, President Woodrow Wilson wanted to get around a few senators filibustering his efforts to bring America into World War I. Wilson's supporters in the Senate adopted Rule 22, which allowed members to end debate if two-thirds of the Senate agreed."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7724818/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/t/filibusters-our-founding-fathers/#.T6nBb-tYvg8