While no doubt popular with the bankers, this is a serious blow to an already struggling middle class. Anyone with kids in college that have student loans would have to be clueless to vote for any Republican after this shameful vote. If the Democrats fail to clobber Republicans over this vote, they're just as clueless.
Why does the middle class have to keep being kicked around by the bankers who caused the recession? Even worse, why is there so much support in Washington for these ridiculous policies?
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked consideration of a Democratic bill to prevent the doubling of some student loan interest rates, leaving the legislation in limbo less than two months before rates on subsidized federal loans are set to shoot upward.
Along party lines, the Senate voted 52 to 45 on a key procedural motion, failing to reach the 60 votes needed to begin debating the measure. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the moderate Republican from Maine who is retiring, voted present.
Senators said quiet negotiations had begun to resolve the impasse, but Democrats sought to raise the political pressure, vowing to take to the Senate floor to show the cost of inaction for students in their states.
