Political Quotes

“I assure you that I will not use the full 60 minutes, but there is an issue that I wanted to spend a few minutes discussing today because it is extremely time sensitive. As the chart next to me indicates, we are today on June 1, twenty- nine days away from the increase in interest rates for the subsidized Stafford Student Loan Program, a program which today presently offers middle class college students loans at a rate of 3.4 percent, and on July 1, by law, that number will double to 6.8 percent unless Congress acts. The situation right now is the result of a measure that was passed in 2007, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which at that time-- again, the statute under the Stafford program required a 6.8 percent interest rate. I was part of a group that passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that cut that rate down to 3.4 percent. For an average student using the Stafford Student Loan Program, which carries a loan limit up to $23,000 a year for a student, that cut in interest rate saved the average student who uses this program about $5,000 to $10,000 in added interest cost, obviously a huge number for young people in this country who are struggling to try to deal with the costs of higher education. Again, it was a 5-year bill, and it has a sunset date of July 1. That is not uncommon in terms of the way legislation is designed in Washington.…”