Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act-Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. The senior Senator from Tennessee has summed it up quite accurately. I have been calling on the majority leader to press pause on his party's nonstop campaign so we can take up bipartisan legislation for a change, because there is a real crisis in the country. It is a scandal that demands the Senate's full attention.

According to the Obama administration's own internal audit, its veterans scandal has now spread to more than three-quarters--three-quarters--of the VA facilities that were surveyed. Nearly 100,000 veterans continue to wait for care at VA centers and many of our veterans have been forced to wait 3 months or longer. Eighteen veterans have already died in Phoenix alone waiting for care that never came. This is a national disgrace.

The President needs to nominate a capable leader and manager who possesses the skills, leadership ability, and determination to correct the failings of the VA, support thousands of VA workers who are committed to serving our veterans, and provide all of those who have served bravely with the timely care they have earned. He also needs to use the tools he already has to address the systemic

failures of management in his administration, and he needs to use the new tools we can provide him with the legislation as well. We in this body have a responsibility to act and to do so with a sense of urgency.

Yesterday the House passed bipartisan legislation unanimously--unanimously--to help deal with this crisis. It is similar to the bipartisan Sanders-McCain bill right here in the Senate. It would increase patient choice, it would introduce some much needed accountability into the VA system, and it is past time to take up that kind of legislation in the Senate. Veterans have been made to wait long enough. Senate Democrats shouldn't be keeping them in the waiting room even longer.

I know the majority leader and his Democratic colleagues would rather stick to their campaign playbook. We know they would rather talk about a bill they claim is about student loans, but the Senate Democrats' bill isn't about students at all. It is all about Senate Democrats because Senate Democrats don't actually want a solution for their students, they want an issue to campaign on to save their own hides this November.

Recall that around this same time last year Republicans had to swoop in with a bipartisan piece of legislation to save students from a rate increase after Senate Democrats blew past the deadline, and Senator Alexander was right in the middle of that incredible and effective solution. Now Senate Democrats are pushing yet another--yet another--student loan bill, one they actually hope will fail.

I think Senate Democrats are in for a surprise. Americans are not going to fall for this spin because students can understand this bill will not make college more affordable, they understand it will not reduce the amount of money they have to borrow, and students know it will not do a thing--not a thing--to fix the economy that is depriving so many young Americans of the jobs they seek.

Of course Senate Democrats understand all of these things too. Here is what the majority leader's lieutenant, the senior Senator from New York, said when he was asked a couple of years ago about student loans. He said that if Democrats had wanted to be ``political about this'' issue, they ``would have paid for it with'' the very same gimmick being used to pay for the bill before us today.

I give the Senator from New York points for honesty. His words show without equivocation that Senate Democrats are now playing politics with the futures of young Americans instead of doing something about the VA crisis.

So let's just accept the Senator's admission that his party's bill is truly about helping Democrats, not students, and let's move on to fixing the VA scandal instead. The time is now to turn away from designed-to-fail politicking and toward actual bipartisan solutions. Our constituents demand it and our veterans deserve it.

I yield the floor.

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