John Spratt: “But it has to be paid. It is obligatory. There is no way around it. You have got to pay it, otherwise the bonds default…”

“But it has to be paid. It is obligatory. There is no way around it. You have got to pay it, otherwise the bonds default and the country is in bankruptcy. We cannot let that happen. Let me touch on the package that we expect to come to the floor to show what our concern is and why we are here at this hour of the day talking about the package that the Republicans are putting together to bring to the floor ostensibly to pay for some of the costs for Hurricane Katrina but truly, truly to offset additional tax cuts of $106 billion. Originally, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) knows, because this is his committee and he can comment further upon it, the Higher Education Act had to be amended this year and was to be amended so that student loans would enjoy fixed rates, not variable rates which would go up as interest rates go up as they are likely to do in the near future. {time} 2045 That decision has been discarded. It is gone. Next, origination fees. The front-end fees that students have to pay to take out a student loan were to be lowered. Not anymore, not with the latest cut. What we are looking at are the barest component parts of this bill called the reconciliation bill that is coming to the floor. It went directly from the Committee on the Budget to the committees of jurisdiction, like the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and they said cut so much money from programs in your jurisdiction. So where did the Committee on Education and the Workforce cut?…”