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Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) thinks its wrong that Big Banks get interest rates on their loans that are seven times lower than America’s students. That’s why she introduced a bill to make the rates exactly the same for one year.

Today, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced that he will be co-sponsoring Warren’s legislation, called the Bank On Student Loan Fairness Act:

Proud to cosponsor @senwarren‘s bill to give our students the same loan rates our biggest financial institutions get from the Fed

ai??i?? Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) May 14, 2013

Help us keep up the momentum.Ai??Weai??i??ve started a petition to support Warrenai??i??s bill. Click here to sign on and help us get started on ending the student debt crisis.

This past January, we reported on two Seattle high schools that were boycotting a particular standardized test — the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) — saying that the focus on testing was crowding out time for teaching. “Weai??i??re not opposing any of the high-stakes testing that are kids are required to take. Weai??i??re only opposing this test, the MAP,” the testing coordinator for one of the schools told us.

The Seattle school district has just announcedAi??that it will not be administering the MAP next year thanks to the protests by teachers.

“Finally, educatorsai??i?? voices have been acknowledged,ai???Ai??saidAi??teacher Jesse Hagopian, who teaches at Garfield High, the site of the beginning of the test boycott. ai???This is a great moment in the movement for quality assessment.ai???

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On Saturday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave the commencement speech at Kentucky’s Murray State University. A group of students is opposed to McConnell’s address, pointing to his record voting against support for higher education. Recall that McConnell, for example, opposed a student loan overhaul that removed big banks as a middleman in federal student lending.

TheyAi??started a petition that has 913 signatures and held demonstrations on campus against the pick. I talked to Murray State senior andAi??politicalAi??science major Devin Griggs, one of the organizers against McConnell who is starting a new progressive student group called CORE — Campus Organization for Racer Empowerment (the Racer is the mascot of the school).

“McConnell’sAi??voting record is completely anti higher education, anti education in general,” explained Griggs in his opposition to McConnell’s commencement address. CORE not only campaigned against McConnell’s address, but will also work to change the Board of Regents policy in the future regarding speakers.

CORE will be asking every Board of Regents member to in the future make sure that no public official Democrat or Republican can be featured as a commencement speaker to ensure that the event is not politicized.

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Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced a bill that would guarantee that, for one year, the federal government would charge the same near-zero interest rates for student loans that it does now for Big Banks.

Warren’s bill has received praise from activists, and for good reason — student debt has become a crisis in the U.S. Here are five facts about that crisis:

Student Loan Debt Is Over $1 Trillion: As of last year, student loan debt exceeded a whopping $1 trillion. “Young consumers are shouldering much of the punishment in the form of substantial student-loan bills for doing exactly what they were told would be the key to a better life,” said Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the time.
Student Debt Has Surpassed Most Other Types Of Consumer Debt: As of 2010, student loan debt outstanding surpassed auto loans, credit cards, and revolving home-equity loans, as this graphic from the Wall Street Journal shows:Ai??
The Average Debt Burden Is Double What It Was In 2003: In 2003, the average student loan debt burden wasAi??$10,649. Now it’sAi??$20,326.
It’s Very Difficult To Discharge Student Debt Thanks To A 1976 Law:Ai??You can discharge various forms of debt by declaring bankruptcy such as credit card and auto loans. But in 1976,Ai??Congress passed a lawAi??to make it very difficult to discharge student loan debt under a similar process. Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Danny Davis (D-IL) have repeatedly introduced legislation to reverse the 1976 law.
It Wasn’t Always This Way: For many in today’s generation, student debt is a fact of life — a necessary burden to getting a college degree. But the situation wasn’t always so dire. In California, universities up until …

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) won’t commit to voting against benefit cuts.

40 Members of the House of Representatives have signed onto the Grayson-Takano letter promising to vote against any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits.

But one congressman who has not is Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). Local Los Angeles resident Kim Kaufman attended a recent town hall event with him and asked him to sign the letter. This was his response, where he compared the Grayson-Takano letter to Washington lobbyist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge:

I would not sign onto any letter that says under no circumstances would I vote for a bill that had that in it. It’s like the Republicans pledge they’ll never vote for tax increases. I don’t want to sign onto a pledge that under no circumstances will I ever do something. Ai??I’ll express my feelings not to do certainAi??things but I don’t want to make that kind of a pledge. I can see possibilities that some things thatAi??we don’t like may be in a final budget and that will get us a lot of things we do want. So I’m not going to sign an unequivocal pledge — for a bill maybe, but not against it.

Kaufman uploaded this video where she read off Waxman’s statement and offered her own response. “Taking a pledge not to cut Social Security is not like taking a pledge not to raise taxes on already rich people. One is a moral response in how to govern and one is not,” she says. Watch it:

Last month, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) held a briefing call with PCCC members where he explained his own take on how the Grayson-Takano letter is very much not like the Norquist pledge:

“I had a reporter ask me recently ‘Is this just …

The U.S. government offers very low-interest — in some cases, near-zero interest rate — loans — that is, if you are a Big Bank on Wall Street. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) doesn’t think it’s right for the government to give a better deal to the banks than to the American people.

So she has introduced a bill that would require federal student loan interest rates to match the rates given to banks. She spoke about this bill today on the Senate floor:

WARREN: Right now as I speak the federal government offers far lower interest rates for loans every single day. They just don’t do it for everyone. Right now the Big Bank can get a loan through the Federal Reserve discount window at a rate of about three quarters of one percent. but this summer a student who’s trying to get a loan to go to college will pay almost seven percent. In other words, the fed gov is going to charge interest rates nine times higher than the rate they charge the biggest banks. The same banks that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke the economy. That isn’t right. And that’s why I’m introducing legislation today to give students the same deal that we give the banks.

Watch Warren’s speech:

Warren’s legislation, called the Bank On Student Loan Fairness Act, will mandate that the Federal Reserve work to provide funds for the Department of Education to provide the same rates that it provides to Big Banks for a period of one year while Congress works on a long-term solution.

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National Review Online writer Kevin Williamson was on MSNBC today and claimed that Medicare and Social Security benefits are not important for seniors and that it would be best if they went “broke”:

WILLIAMSON: These programs we’re working so hard to defend like Medicare and Social Security don’t actually do a tremendous amount of good for people […] So the sooner those go broke, the sooner those disappear, and we replace them with, better more productive alternatives, the better off the country is.

Watch it:

Far from accomplishing nothing, these programs are important in a myriad of ways. Social Security has an economic output of $1.2 trillion, creating 8.4 million jobs. It also is estimated to keep 20 million Americans out of poverty. And it’s no coincidence that life expectancy has shot up since we enacted Medicare.

Recall that Williamson once justified a Tennessee county refusing to put out a fire that burned down a family’s home because they did not pay for a subscription-only fire service. It now appears that he’s ready to burn down the country’s most treasured social insurance programs.

Call your Member of Congress and ask them to sign onto the Grayson-Takano letter vowing to vote against any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits.

House Republicans are pushing a bill this week dubiously titled the “Working Families Flexibility Act.” The bill, if enacted, would allow employers to deny employeesAi??overtime pay and instead replace it with paid time off that would be given at the employer’s choosing. In the words of Rep. George Miller (D-CA), this would mean “unused time would be paid back at the end of the year, amounting to a no-interest loan to employers from workers.”

While House Republicans are working towards their long-term goal of killing overtime pay, progressive Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has other plans. He has offered an amendment to the Republican legislation mandating a week’s paid vacation to any employee at a company with 100 or more employees:

The GOP has a bill on overtime. I offered an amendment that guarantees one week of paid vacation to American workers. rules.house.gov/amendments/GRAai??i??

ai??i?? Rep. Alan Grayson (@AlanGrayson) May 7, 2013

The bill is expected to be voted on this week, it remains to be seen whether the House Republicans will allow a vote on Grayson’s amendment.

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Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) was one of only four Democratic Senators to vote to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases, even though 79 percent of the people in his state support this measure.

On Friday, late night talk show host David Letterman named Baucus “Stooge Of The Night” for this vote against background checks. Watch it:

videoWant to help us fight for gun reforms?Ai??Click here to pitch in a few dollars to run a Montana TV ad holding Max Baucus accountable for voting against background checks.

Today,Ai??Kentucky moms and gun owners from Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee held a press conference in support of gun reforms outside of the office of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The groups presented 1,200 local petition signatures in favor of expanded background checks, a reform that 82 percent of Kentuckians support.

Kentucky gun owner, mom, and Progressive Change Campaign Committee member Pam Gersh was one of those who spoke at the press conference.

“I was born here and have lived here all my life. When I was 18 years old, Mitch McConnell, running his first campaign for the Senate shook my hand outside of my place of work. Today, 30 years later, Mitch McConnell will not shake my hand (or the hands of any of the other people here today),” explained Gersh. “He wonai??i??t let us enter his office as a group, only three at a time. He wonai??i??t meet with us. Mitch McConnell is out of touch, literally andAi??figuratively, with the people of Kentucky on many issues.”

“I want Mitch McConnell to represent the people who voted him into office. Mitch McConnell, vote on behalf of everyday Kentuckians – gun owners and mothers like myself – and vote for background checks,” she concluded. “If he doesnai??i??t want to look us in the eye and shake our hands and listen to us, then he doesnai??i??t deserve our vote.”

UPDATE: More photos from the event (thanks to Nancy Jakubiak)

UPDATE II: A local news station covered the event. “It doesn’t have anything to do with politics, it has everything to do with saving lives,” Pam Gersh said to the local reporter. Watch it:

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