Political Quotes

“Mr. President, when Senators rise on this floor, typically we are identifying problems, we are talking about how to solve them, and we are talking about how prior actions haven't quite worked. Today I have the pleasure of rising for the opposite reason. I am here to talk about something that has worked, something that we did, something that we worked on together on a bipartisan basis that has made an enormous difference for the students of our country. In the spring of 2013, there was an impending deadline. The interest rate on student loans, which in the past had been set by statute by Congress without regard to what the underlying economics were at the time or what the borrowing rate of the Federal Government was--it was an arbitrary number set by Congress, and it was due to double. In July of 2013, it was due to double to 6.8 percent. There was a proposal put forward by the leadership and by the Members on this side of the aisle which did not get sufficient votes. There was another proposal put forth by the Senators on the other side of the aisle which also didn't get enough votes. We were left with a situation with no proposal on the floor and an impending deadline that would have doubled rates for student loans for millions of students across the country. At that point, a small, bipartisan group of us got together and said: There has to be a better way to find a solution. We can't let this happen to our students.…”