On the recordApril 27, 2012
I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, last week, the Republican majority was adamantly opposed to this legislation. This week, we're rushing it through on the floor today. You know what? That's a good thing. We're on the same page. The majority and the minority want to preserve student loan interest rates at 3.4 percent, not let them double to 6.8 percent. So if that is the case, why are we selecting mutually unacceptable ways to pay for this? It's as though we're resorting to the trick bags: you raid the health fund that's so important to us; we present the oil company provision that is so unacceptable to you. What we should do is find a way to put some limits, some incentives to keep tuition increases at or below the rate of inflation. They were up, 8.4 percent. If we work together, that would be a double win for students and parents. We could keep those interest rates low, and we could start bringing down the escalation in tuition increases that are unacceptable.
