Why Doesn't Obama Get New Dems Polis, Garcia, Maffei And Peters To Change Their Anti-Student Votes And Show The GOP He's Serious?

This college loan rate we've been writing about is a big deal. On Wednesday we pointed out the hypocrisy of the Democratic leadership in playing politics with the issue. After all, double the number of Republicans (8) joined the 190 Democrats to oppose John King's GOP rate hike bill than the 4 New Dems who crossed the aisle in the other direction to vote against students-- Jared Polis (CO), Scott Peters (CA), Joe Garcia (FL) and Dan Maffei (NY).

Early Friday, the DCCC-- which is promising huge money for Garcia's and Maffei's reelection efforts (the other two are multimillionaires)-- released ads targeting students at the University of Minnesota (John Kline), Cal State- San Bernardino (Gary Miller), Clark College (Jaime Herrera Beutler), Florida State U. (Steve Southerland) U of Illinois- Champaign-Urbana (Rodney Davis) and UNLV (Joe Heck).

Why not University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee (Paul Ryan), Why not UCSD- La Jolla (Darrell Issa?) Except for chairman Kline, these two clowns have a lot more to say about formulating and promulgating the reactionary GOP policy agenda than any of the backbenchers the DCCC is going after. And why not University of Colorado- Boulder (Polis), University of Miami (Garcia), Syracuse University (Maffei) or UCSD (where they could target Issa and New Dem Scott Peters in one ad)?

"The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee," their press release announced, "today is launching paid advertising in six college newspapers to alert students that their member of Congress is poised to allow their student loan rates to double by the end of June. The average college graduate already leaves school with $26,000 in student loan debt." College students aren't as dumb as your typical DCCC donor. How hard will it be for them to realize the hypocrisy of the DCCC chastising Republicans for voting the exact same way as 4 New Dems?

I might add that one of the New Dems tried explaining it to me but his reasoning was flawed, shot through with factual errors and the only part of his explanation worth retaining is that Hoyer decided to NOT whip the Democratic caucus on the vote! That means the whip team wasn't out talking to Members about why they need to present a sold front and listening to their feedback. Hoyer-- making mischief again... potentially very costly mischief for working families across the country. Meanwhile, Boehner is crowing how Kline's Students Pay More Act passed with a bipartisan majority. Nice.

“This should be a wakeup call for every student in America-- House Republicans are on a path to double your interest rates,” said Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “College students absolutely need to know that their representatives are about to make school more expensive, even while they’re subsidizing Big Oil companies to the tune of billions of dollars a year. For the umpteenth time, House Republicans are ignoring the needs of middle class families and standing with corporate special interests-- and we urge all these students to sign our petition to keep loan rates low.”

According to the Associated Press: “Under the GOP proposal, student loans would be reset every year and based on 10-year Treasury notes, plus an added percentage. For instance, students who receive subsidized or unsubsidized Stafford student loans would pay the Treasury rate, plus 2.5 percentage points. Using Congressional Budget Office projections, that would translate to a 5 percent interest rate on Stafford loans in 2014, but the rate would climb to 7.7 percent for loans in 2023. Stafford loan rates would be capped at 8.5 percent, while loans for parents and graduate students would have a 10.5 percent ceiling under the GOP proposal."

...In real dollars, the GOP plan would cost students and families heavily, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The office used the CBO projections for Treasury notes’ interest rates each year. Students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay $8,331 in interest payments under the Republican bill, and $3,450 if rates were kept at 3.4 percent. If rates were allowed to double in July, that amount would be $7,284 over the typical 10-year window to repay the maximum $19,000.” If the Republican plan were implemented, college graduates would pay $4,881 more in interest, compared to the current rate.

Maybe no one showed this to Joe Garcia, Jared Polis, Scott Peters and Dan Maffei? It would have been nice if Obama and the Democratic leadership all just got behind Elizabeth Warren's proposal to lower student loan rates to the same rate-- 0.75%-- that the banksters pay the Fed. But that makes too much sense for the Beltway Democrats. They have their own difficult-to-understand, cockamamie approach, better than the Republicans but not nearly as good as Warren's. Instead, Obama took to the Rose Garden Friday morning and made a speech. Here are some salient parts in a talk very much meant not just for students but for their parents and the general public.

[T]he cost of a college education... isn’t just critical for their futures, but it’s also critical for America’s future.

Over the past four and a half years, we’ve been fighting our way back from a financial crisis and an incredibly punishing recession-- the worst since the Great Depression-- and it cost millions of Americans their jobs and their homes, the sense of security that they’d spent their lives building up.

...[W]e’re seeing progress, and the economy is starting to pick up steam. The gears are starting to turn again, and we’re getting some traction. But the thing is, the way we measure our progress as a country is not just where the stock market is; it’s not just to how well the folks at the top are doing; it’s not just about the aggregate economic numbers. It’s about how much progress ordinary families are making. Are we creating ladders of opportunity for everybody who’s willing to work hard? Are we creating not only a growing economy, but also the engine that is critical to long-lasting, sustained economic growth-- and that is a rising, thriving middle class. That’s our focus. That’s what we’ve got to be concerned about every single day. That’s our North Star.

And that means there are three questions we have to ask ourselves as a nation. Number one: How do we make America a magnet for good jobs in this competitive 21st century economy? Number two: How do we make sure that our workers earn the skills and education they need to do those jobs? And number three: How do we make sure those jobs actually pay a decent wage or salary, so that people can save for retirement, send their kids to college?

Those are the questions we’ve got to be asking ourselves every single day. So we’re here today to talk about that second question. How do we make sure our workers earn the skills and education they need to do the jobs that companies are hiring for right now, and are going to keep hiring for in the future? We know that the surest path to the middle class is some form of higher education -- a four-year degree, a community college degree, an advanced degree. You’re going to need more than just a high school education to succeed in this economy.

And the young people here today, they get that. They’re working through college; maybe just graduated. And earning their degree isn’t just the best investment that they can make for their future-- it’s the best investment that they can make in America’s future.

But like a lot of young people all across the country, these students have had to take on more and more and more debt to pay for this investment. Since most of today’s college students were born, tuition and fees at public universities have more than doubled. And these days, the average student who takes out loans to pay for four years of college graduates owing more than $26,000. How many people are on track here for $26,000?

And that doesn’t just hold back our young graduates. It holds back our entire middle class, because Americans now owe more on our student loans than we do on our credit cards. And those payments can last for years, even decades, which means that young people are putting off buying their first car, or their first house-- the things that grow our economy and create new jobs. And I’ve said this before, I know this firsthand-- Michelle and I, we did not finish paying off our student loans until about nine years ago. And our student loans cost more than our mortgage. Right when we wanted to start saving for Sasha and Malia’s college education, we were still paying off our own college education.

And we were lucky. We had more resources than many. So we cannot price the middle class or folks who are willing to work hard to get into the middle class out of a college education.We can’t keep saddling young people with more and more and more debt just as they’re starting out in life.

Now, the good news is over the past four years, my administration has done a lot to address this.  Working with members of Congress, we’ve expanded student aid. We’ve reformed the student loan system. We’ve saved tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that were just going to big banks, and made sure that the money went to helping more young people afford college.

We made it easier to pay back those loans by passing a law that says you’ll only have to pay 10 percent of your monthly income towards your student-- federal student loans once you graduate. This is important to emphasize, by the way, because a lot of your peers, a lot of young people don’t know this. Under existing law that we passed, you never have to pay more than 10 percent of your income in paying back your federal student loans, which means if you want to be a teacher, you want to go into a profession that does not pay a lot of money but gives you a lot of satisfaction, you are still capable of doing that and supporting yourself.

We unveiled a new college scorecard that gives parents and students the clear, concise information that you need to shop around for a school with the best value for you. And I’ve made it clear that those colleges that don’t do enough to keep college costs down should get less taxpayer support.

So we’re doing what we can, but here’s the thing: If Congress doesn’t act by July 1st, federal student loan rates are set to double. And that means that the average student with those loans will rack up an additional $1,000 in debt. That’s like a $1,000 tax hike. I assume most of you cannot afford that. Anybody here can afford that? No.

Now, if this sounds like déjà vu all over again, that’s because it is.  We went through this last summer.  Some of you were here.  It wasn't as hot. (Laughter.) I don't think we did this event outside. (Laughter.) But we went through this. And eventually, Congress listened to all the parents and young people who said “don’t double my rate.” And because folks made their voices heard, Congress acted to keep interest rates low. But they only did it for a year and that year is almost up.

So the test here is simple. We’ve got to make sure that federal student loan rates don’t double on July 1st. Now, the House of Representatives has already passed a student loan bill, and I’m glad that they took action. But unfortunately, their bill does not meet that test. It fails to lock in low rates for students next year. That’s not smart. It eliminates safeguards for lower-income families. That’s not fair. It could actually cost a freshman starting school this fall more over the next four years than if we did nothing at all and let the interest rates double on July 1st.

So the House bill isn't smart and it's not fair. I'm glad the House is paying attention to it, but they didn't do it in the right way. So I’m asking young people to get involved and make your voices heard once again. Last year, you convinced 186 Republicans in the House and 24 Republicans in the Senate to work with Democrats to keep student loan rates low. You made something bipartisan happen in this town that is-- that's a powerful thing. You guys were able to get Democrats and Republicans to vote for something that was important.

So this year, if it looks like your representatives have changed their minds, you're going to have to call them up again or email them again or Tweet them again and ask them what happened, what changed? You're still taking out these loans. You're still facing challenges.

Remind them that we're a people who help one another earn an education, because it benefits all of us. During the Civil War, Lincoln had the foresight to set up a system of land grant colleges. At the end of World War II, we set up the GI Bill so that people like my grandfather could come back from a war and get an education. All these things created the greatest middle class on Earth.

My mom, a single mom, was able to get the support that she needed through loans and grants-- even while she was also working and raising two kids-- to get her degrees. I'm only here, Michelle is only right over there in the East Wing because we got great educations. We didn't come from privilege. And we want to make sure that the next generation has those same opportunities, because that has been good for the country as a whole.

It’s up to us now to carry forward that tradition. Higher education cannot be a luxury for a privileged few. It is an economic necessity that every family should be able to afford, every young person with dreams and ambition should be able to access. And now is not the time for us to turn back on young people. Now is not the time to slash the investments that help us grow. Now is the time to reaffirm our commitment to you and the generation that's coming behind you, and that if we work together to generate more jobs and educate more kids and open up new opportunities for everybody who’s willing to work and willing to push through those doors of opportunity, America can't be stopped.

It would be nice if President Obama picked up the phone and called the 4 New Dems who voted with the GOP against students and got them to change their minds. It could set a good example for enough wavering-- or is that quivvering?-- Republicans, to get a reasonable plan back in gear. Granted, even if Obama brings the New Dems to their senses, deranged extremist ideologues like Luke Messer (R-IN) aren't ever changing their minds. Watch: