Senate Rejects Competing Federal Student Loan Proposals

Prepared by: Wes Huffman (whuffman@wpllc.net)
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Today, as expected, the Senate took up competing student loan proposals and both failed to receive the necessary votes.

The debate over the two bills, S. 953 and S.1003 was very similar to the House debate last week. Throughout the discussion, Republicans pointed to their efforts to craft a long term solution for all federal loans, noted the similarities between their plan and the President’s, and criticized the Democrats for “playing politics” on an issue where there is true common ground.

While Democrats generally agreed on the need for long-term reform, they said more time was necessary to do it right.  They were also highly critical of the Senate Republican proposal, describing it as a “tax” on students to juxtapose it against their proposal to eliminate certain corporate tax breaks.

Many Senators have suggested they are willing to work on a compromise in the wake of the failed votes, but Majority Leader Harry Reid appears intent on pushing for an extension.  Heading into today’s debate he said, “We have no reason to work out a compromise.  We’ve got a few tax loopholes we think should be closed to pay for maintaining these interest rates the way they In The country, 888’s online best-casinos-online.info is easily the most popular in the united states and 888 needs to obtain a further boost if this adds slots to that particular mix sometime before 2013 involves a detailed. are right now.”

S. 1003, the Republican measure, failed by a vote of 40-57.  Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) joined his Republican colleagues in supporting the measure and five Republicans (Crapo, Lee, Paul, Risch, and Toomey) voted against it.

S. 953, the Democratic proposal, failed to reach the 60 vote margin needed to bring the measure forward with a party-line vote of 51-46.  All Democrats present voted for S. 953, but Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine who normally caucuses with Democrats, voted against both bills.

Detailed vote information on S. 1003 is available online:  http://goo.gl/StORA

Detailed vote information on S. 953 is available online:  http://goo.gl/E4QSb