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The Spectacle Blog
The New York Times reports that Democrats have tentatively agreed to bundle the student loan bill (which would have the government directly lend to students and eliminate the role of private companies in federally-backed loans) into the health care reconciliation bill. Doing so could accomplish several things: 1) pass a student loan bill that can’t garner 60 votes in the Senate 2) allow Democrats to get around the requirement that the reconciliation bill would have to reduce deficits by $1 billion and 3) Potentially secure the needed votes to pass the Senate bill through the House.
The student loan bill comfortably passed the House with 253 votes, including those from 34 Democrats who voted against the health care bill. Thus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be thinking that if she can induce some of those Democrats into supporting a health care bill by attaching it to something they like, it may be able to make up for whatever defections she’ll have within her caucus due to abortion or other concerns.
UPDATE: A Hill staffer tells me that the student loan gambit may not actually do much to improve the prospects for the pasage of a health care bill. While it’s true that the CBO has ruled that the student loan measure could save $67 billion, Democrats are going to want to use as much of that as possible to funnel into Pell grants to avert massive cuts. As the Wall Street Journal explains:
The administration is caught in a funding bind in large part because it made a miscalculation when it raised the ceiling for Pell grants to $5,300 from $4,800 last year as part of the stimulus bill. Combined with a surge in new Pell grant recipients, the higher ceiling has sharply driven up costs for the program, which has run a $19 billion deficit since 2008. An administration official said that about 800,000 more students than predicted have received Pell grants since last fall.
The administration now says it will have to lower the Pell grant ceiling for the 2011 academic year to $2,150, if the lending overhaul fails to pass.
Thus, Democrats may not have much money to spare to help get around the requirement that the reconciliation bill would have to reduce deficits by $1 billion. The staffer also said that the bill would be unlikely to win over Democratic votes in the House and would probably cost votes in the Senate (though likely not enough to bring down the bill). In the end, the inclusion of the student loan measure would be more about passing the measure itself, which the administration needs to get done urgently, yet it couldn’t get 60 votes in the Senate on its own. So the bottom line, according to the staffer, is that melding the student loan bill into the larger health care bill is more about passing the student loan bill than it is about passing the health care bill.
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More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/03/12/is-student-aid-bill-pelosis-ac
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Flee| 3.12.10 @ 3:30PM
Do they really think Americans won't recognize slight of hand when they see it? How does attaching a supposedly acceptable provision to an almost wholly unacceptable bill make it all better? If unsupportive Democrats roll over on this one, they will find the road out of DC wide open come next fall.
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The Slaughter Solution, And Other Tactics For Passing Health Reform - Hit & Run : Rea links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Hot Air » Blog Archive » SEIU warns House Dem: Vote yes or we’ll primary you links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Gene| 3.12.10 @ 7:22PM
When the gov't takes over all student loans , how long do you think it will take for colleges to be forced farther into liberal progressive agenda teaching.
BHDavis| 3.13.10 @ 7:06AM
You're right, the government never grabs a program if they don't intend to take control of something and with Obama's new agenda which is already hitting high school now with it's teaching of the Alinsky methods of brainwashing our children into the teachings of a socialist who wants social justice-aka ACORN-this is below the belt and parents must take back control of what is being taught to their children. This method makes demostrators, community organizers, etc. out of all suseptible minds without their even being aware of what's happening to them and it's just another cog in the wheel of Obama and the radical liberals to take over and "fundamentally" change America...I don't trust Pelosi or any of that crowd or Obama and this legislation should never be attached to something so drastic as this massive 159 new agencies health care takeover. I pray every day for my country-we must stick together, email, tea party, vote, vote, vote in 2010 for new blood with conservative ideas to restore our fragile economy.
Chrome| 3.13.10 @ 12:29AM
Byrd rule tests - Section 313(b)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act sets forth six tests for matters to be considered extraneous under the Byrd rule. The criteria apply to provisions that:
#2 produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;
3) are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;
So ... is Student Aid connected to Health care? ( #2 )
Who is responsible for submitting the Health Care bill ... is it the same committee as the Student Aid committee? if not ... fails rule 3.
B. Johnson| 3.13.10 @ 1:09AM
Given that the federal Constitution is silent about both public healthcare and public education, the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate healthcare and education to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress.
But more importantly, Chief Justice Marshall had established the following case precedent, now wrongly ignored by both federal and state lawmakers, that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
So not only is Obamacare and student aid constitutionally unauthorized, but corrupt Congress never had the power to lay taxes in the name of such things. In other words, illegal federal taxes layed in the name of healthcare and student aid should never have left the states anyway, IMO. (Did you hear that bankrupt California?) So constitutionally clueless Pelosi is wrongly trying to buy voter approval for illegal Obamacare with student aid money that the federal government stole from voters in the first place.
What a mess! :^(
The bottom line is that Pelosi needs to promote legislation to build a federal prison for corrupt "leaders" of Congress, and then move into it.
Thomas Paine| 3.13.10 @ 7:20PM
I sure hope you're right. 5-4 in SCOTUS?
Ellen| 3.13.10 @ 9:19AM
Read the bill. This bill is designed to kill private loan programs. No private loan can contain any fed money. Since it's nearly impossible to find any such loan or run an entirely private loan program the gov't will end up forcing private lenders out of the school loan business. Another private sector enterprise bites the dust.
Then all you need to worry about is that the gov't doesn't want you to repay the loan with money.
They want years of your life in gov't service. They want you to work for gov't for 4-5 years and they will erase your debt.
What are the chances after 4-5 years your degree will be current enough or you will be competitive enough to get a private sector job?
And who will want to after that much time in a job with few real demands. Ghee..push paper, sit on your behind, get all holidays and weekends off with pay, great HC cause of course the gov't opted out of our swell new program, fantastic retirement benefits..or, uh, work for a living.
I can hear the little children now. "When I grow up I wanna be a pencil pusher for the gov't!"
What's not to love, right?
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clif guy| 3.15.10 @ 12:08AM
Another step towards redistribution of wealth, AKA socialism (communist regime).
Government controls healthcare and education, student loans, auto industry, banking, commerce and every thing else.
Now they are working to co-own judiciary as well. Recent dressing down of Supreme court justices.
People live on subsidies and handouts and are forever beholden to Democrats for these largese.
No independent thinking, no enterprenuership, no risk taking, no capital formatation.
Every one will be an extemely obedient subject of the government.
Life as we knew is coming to an end.
WeThePeopleWest JordanUt| 3.15.10 @ 11:07AM
You Got to Be Kidding
Up in arms in the introduction of a new government medical take over, constituents will feel better because the Washington Elite are to add another new (government take over from Private Enterprise)...
HOW DUMB CAN THEY BE
worse
HOW DUMB do they think we are....
November 2 can not come soon enough....
CarolynMerry| 3.15.10 @ 12:22PM
I think Obama forgot to ask universities how they feel about this take over. Two years ago the Cuomo kid waged an attack on universities who were managing their own student loans. Some universties caved and payed some fines, others stood their ground but they ALL HATED AND RESENTED THE INTRUSION!!
I think this last power grab could easily destroy the relationship between higher education and Obama/ the dems. He's bitten one of the hands that traditionally feed them votes.
mark| 3.15.10 @ 1:27PM
It appears to me, although I am not a legislative expert by any stretch, that the Dems in the House are doing just what this column says. I followed a link in Paul Ryan's op-ed in the WaPo
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031401388.html)
to the "reconciliation vehicle" which has, as Divisions I and II a bunhc of health care reform measures and as "Division III" a student loan bill
Here is the link to the bill:
http://budget.house.gov/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1751
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