Senate Republicans are signaling that they are going to block Elizabeth Warren’s bill to help 40 million students refinance their loans, because it would raise taxes on millionaires.
Sen Warren’s bill would allow students to refinance their old debt at today’s lower interest rates. In many cases, Warren’s bill would allow those who are burdened by student loan debt to slice their interest rate from 6% or 7% to 3.86%. Her legislation would help 40 million borrowers, and would be paid for by phasing in a new tax on millionaires in 2015.
President Obama gave the bill his full support today.
The president said:
I’ve taken action on my own to offer millions of students the opportunity to cap their monthly student loan payments to 10% of their income. But Congress needs to do its part. The good news is that Senate Democrats are working on a bill that would help more young people save money. Just like you can refinance your mortgage at a lower interest rate, this bill would let you refinance your student loans. And we’d pay for it by closing loopholes that allow some millionaires to pay a lower tax rate than the middle class.
That’s the choice that your representatives in Congress will make in the coming weeks – protect young people from crushing debt, or protect tax breaks for millionaires. And while Congress decides what it’s going to do, I will keep doing whatever I can without Congress to help responsible young people pay off their loans – including new action I will take this week.
Although this bill has 35 Senate co-sponsors, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is signalling that he is going to block the legislation from passing. McConnell said, “This bill doesn’t make college more affordable, reduce the amount of money students will have to borrow, or do anything about the lack of jobs grads face in the Obama economy.”
The truth is that McConnell is going to obstruct a piece of legislation that would help 40 millions Americans save money and get out of debt, because he refuses raise taxes on a few thousand of the wealthiest Americans.
Forty million people are going to continue to be crushed by crippling student loan debt because Republicans refuse to raise taxes on millionaires. This is what Citizens United money is able to buy the conservative billionaires. Warren’s bill is a common sense proposal that would help tens of millions of people, but it will be obstructed because it would cost some millionaires their pocket change.
People are suffering because the wealthiest Americans are running the Republican Party. The likely fate of Warren’s bill is another example of why the nation must get the big donors out of our campaign finance system.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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