Student Loan Bill Victim of Political Insanity [Left and Right]

I am finally ready to say it. There is a good chance we are doomed. There is a good chance that America may be falling off a cliff and we are all blindly arguing about the view on the way down. If today’s Senate failure to prevent an increase in student loan interest rates is an example of the lunacy coming out Washington, then yes, we are all doomed.

Let me play out a scenario for you.

During the debate on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Senate Democrats needed a way to make the costs of the bill seem somewhat doable so they used a shady Washington trick of taking money from some programs and plans to increase others to offset a bills costs. In this case they added 60 billion dollars from an increase in student loan interest rates.

Now no one wants to increase interest rates on people paying back student loans, the Democrats knew this, so they figured that when the increase in rates is set to kick in that Congress will act to keep them low and find the money elsewhere.

This is what is playing out in Congress right now. The House passed a bill to keep the interest rates where they are and today the Senate was supposed to begin debate on their own version. The Republicans blocked the debate based on the fact that Democrats want to pay for the interest rate fix by increasing taxes on the rich to pay for it. The Republicans want to take the money out of the part of Obamacare that the money went to.

This is again why we may just be doomed. Congress, who have not passed a budget since 2009 and have just passed individual spending bills which have added up to a trillion+ dollars a year in new borrowing, keep wanting to pass new spending bills and have repeatedly charged that the best idea was to raise taxes on the rich to do so. Republicans, who have never met a tax increase they like, veto it every time and tell the Democrats to get the money elsewhere.

Both parties deadlock on how to pay for it and at the 11th hour they pass the bill anyway and just decide to borrow the money needed to pay for it.

I am not the type who really cares where Congress gets the money to pay for vital programs. Tax increases, spending cuts, it is generally all the same. What I have a big problem with is that we refuse to tackle any of the large issues in this country because all we do is debate how to use every last penny on little nickel and dime projects.

This election a message should be sent to all the politicians in America. Start solving problems and stop playing games, if not we will all vote for Ron Paul ?

Left and Right is a three times weekly column by Inquistr writer H. Scott English examining the hottest political issues of the day, the candidates running for public office and the 2012 elections.