Michael Bennet: “I again say thank you to the chairman of the HELP Committee for all his leadership and his work dealing with this form.…”

“I again say thank you to the chairman of the HELP Committee for all his leadership and his work dealing with this form. We have been after this for about 1 year. This might be a quiet bill, as Senator King said earlier, but in my travels around the State I can't find anybody who is unhappy with this legislation except for the people who have already filled out the form, who are asking: Where were you 5 years ago when I was having to do this for my students or where were you when I was having to fill this out for my college education? It makes absolutely no sense. I am sure many of these questions are well intentioned, but what we have learned in the hearings we have had, in the testimony, is they are not necessary. If they are not necessary, we shouldn't be asking them. Our students would be a lot better off spending their time figuring out what college they want to attend, figuring out what course of study they want to undertake than spending their time with this bureaucratic nightmare. I am enormously optimistic that we are going to get this passed with the chairman's leadership, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on that. I would like to thank the Senator from New Jersey again for signing on as one of the original cosponsors. With that, I yield the floor. ____________________”