Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Tierney. I want to just, first of all, begin by recognizing your leadership and, particularly, George Miller's leadership back in 2007 when we passed the College Cost Reduction Act which reduced an interest rate of 6.8 percent, which was set as a result of a Republican Congress in 2002 which passed a Budget Reconciliation Act locking in that higher rate. The College Cost Reduction Act has saved 15 million students in this country higher debt levels because we cut that rate to 3.4 percent. Sadly, the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, voted against that measure. Sadly, my good friend from Minnesota, the chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, voted against that measure in 2007. It was well understood that it had a 5-year sunset, like a lot of programs and tax policies in this Congress. People were complaining about the cliff we created. Well, how about the Bush tax cuts? That's got a $4 trillion cliff on December 31 because the majority party, when they enacted the Bush tax cuts, sunset that measure. So here we are today, 64 days away from the rates doubling, and we're now suddenly seeing the majority party get religion on this subject. As Mr. Miller pointed out a minute-or-so ago, in fact, the Ryan budget, which the Republicans lined up as a party to pass two or three weeks ago, locked in the higher rate at 6.8 percent for 2013. That was built into the Ryan budget.…”