Eye on Washington: First, the Perfect Storm—Now
What?
By Terry Hartle
Congress returned from its August recess and quickly passed The
College Cost Reduction and Access Act (HR 2669). In simple terms, this
legislation cuts more than $20 billion from the Federal Family Education
Loan Program (FFELP) and uses the savings to increase spending on Pell
Grants and to improve the terms and conditions of student loans to
borrowers.
The legislation was done as part of the federal budget
reconciliation process. This is an expedited legislative procedure
(expedited because it cannot be filibustered in the Senate) designed
to cut entitlement spending in an
effort to reduce the deficit. However, Democrats used reconciliation in
a new way—they allocated $750 million of the student loan savings
to deficit reduction, but the rest of the money was spent to expand
federal spending on higher education. Republicans cried "Foul!" but the
Democrats responded that the Republicans had done the same thing (though
to a far lesser degree) in 2006 when they controlled Congress. . .
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Excerpted from the fall 2007 issue of The
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