House Education Committee Democrats Aim to Force a Vote to Prevent Doubling of Student Loan Rates
WASHINGTON – Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee today began a procedural move to force the committee to take up recently introduced legislation to ensure another year of debt relief for college students, keeping student loan interest rates for 7 million people at 3.4 percent. The legislation (H.R. 2574), introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the committee, is identical to a bill introduced by Senate Democrats yesterday that locks in interest rates at 3.4 percent for one year while Congress works to strike a deal on a long-term solution that benefits students and their families.
In a letter to Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.), Reps. Miller, Courtney, Hinojosa, and Tierney launched a rarely used parliamentary procedure to move legislation that would stop federal student loan rates from doubling July 1. The procedure gives Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Kline three days to decide whether to announce action the Keeping Student Loans Affordable Act of 2013 on an expedited track. If Chairman Kline fails to schedule the bill for action, committee Democrats can schedule a markup with the consent of just three committee Republicans.
A House GOP bill (H.R. 1911) was approved by the committee and House, but went nowhere in the Senate. The GOP’s H.R. 1911 increases students’ total debt burden and a Congressional Research Service analysis shows that the proposal is even worse for students than letting the rates double on July 1 for subsidized Stafford loans. It continues to be a nonstarter for congressional Democrats and President Obama, who has threatened to veto the bill. The parliamentary procedure invoked by committee Democrats today is aimed at forcing a committee debate and vote of a student loan interest rate bill that is viable.
“Mr. Chairman, the Committee has not done right by the nation’s 7 million students who depend on these federal student loans to go to college. Passing a dead on arrival bill in the House is not good enough. Democrats continue to support legislation that will stop the interest rate from doubling, without charging students billions of dollars in extra interest charges to pay down the deficit,” committee Democrats wrote. “The Committee must take urgent action to reverse the doubling of student loan interest rates for millions of students. We request that you and your Republican colleagues drop your proposal to pile on more student debt, and take immediate action to pass corrective legislation.”
Democrats believe that the student loan program should be run for the benefit of students, not to be used as a tool to pay down the national debt. In addition, any long-term solution must not make debt worse for students and must cap potentially high interest rates in the future. With the hours ticking down, Congress needs to move now.
Watch a video explaining the House GOP bill:
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