Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I want to join Senator Reed of Rhode Island, who just spoke very persuasively about the need to freeze interest rates for Stafford loans for college students in America. He also spoke, I thought very convincingly, about closing a tax loophole that has clearly been used to avoid--legally--taxes by lobbyists, consulting groups, lawyers--all of whom are using this tax loophole to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, in many cases. The case of former Senator John Edwards and his law firm--not like most law firms but in his law firm--and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, one a Democrat and one a Republican, have shown the size of this loophole and how it can turn into tens of thousands of dollars. I am not accusing either of these gentlemen of doing anything illegally-- only taking advantage of a loophole we should close. I come to the floor to make the case how important these subsidized Stafford loans are to college students. In my State of Ohio--as in the State of the Presiding Officer, the State of North Carolina--we have hundreds of thousands of students using these Stafford subsidized loans; in Ohio, some 380,000; in North Carolina I assume it is not too far off that. Students have enjoyed, if that is the right word, 3.4 percent interest rates on their loans rather than something higher. What is discouraging is that this was a bipartisan effort. In 2007, the year I came to the Senate, President Bush and Democrats, the majority in both Houses, joining with many of my Republican colleagues in this body and the House of Representatives, locked in the subsidized Stafford student loan rate of 3.4 percent for 5 years from 2007 until this July. That expires in July. It was bipartisan then; it should be bipartisan now. But a couple days ago the Republicans filibustered. I am hopeful today or whenever this next vote is taken they will not. I am going to, for 3 or 4 minutes, read a small number of letters, stories I have gotten from students in my State of Ohio who have come to my Web site and told us their stories. I urge people in Ohio to come to this Web site, brown.senate.gov/collegeloanstories. Just tell us your story. I am not so cynical, but I think when my colleagues start listening to people at home, listening to students--I was at Wright State College near Dayton the other day and the University of Cincinnati and Cuyahoga in Cleveland. I met with students and I listened to their stories. Several of them stood and talked about what these student loans mean. Already, the average student who graduates from an Ohio 4-year university graduates with debt of about $27,000. That means it is much harder for them to start a family, to buy a car, to buy a home, to start a business. That is why it is so important not to heap more burdens on them, put more debt on them. I will close by reading three letters. Cody from Delphos, OH, northwest Ohio: I graduated high school with the goal in mind to get my doctorate in pharmacy. After five years of hard work I am 9 months of practice rotations away from achieving my goal. Along with that achievement comes a paralyzing amount of college debt from attending a private university. In addition, I have hopes of doing an additional two years of residencies after I graduate to specialize in critical care/trauma, but since residencies pay less than half of a pharmacists salary I may not be able to go further and reach my goal of becoming a clinical pharmacist specialized in critical care/trauma. Help me reach my goals by keeping interest rates low and helping create affordable means by which those from low income families can attend college without have to accumulate the debt I have had to. Allow youth to reach their full potential and be able to serve society in their best capacity by finding a solution to the rising cost of an education. Nonya from Wooster, OH, east of where I grew up in Mansfield, about 30 miles away, writes: Going to College changed my life and my whole families lives. The only reason I even considered going to college was because my mom did. The only reason she was able to go was student loans. And because my oldest daughter saw my mom and I doing it she is now attending college. My family had a rough beginning, my mother and I both survived sexual abuse and the disease of addiction before finding a solution. School has been our way out. My mother now has a bachelors and is working as a licensed social worker. I am on my way to a bachelors as well. How could I in good conscience say to my daughter ``go to college'' if I know she'll never be able to pay off her loans. I have never had a job as long as I have had the one I have today. I am a student assistant at Wayne College and if it weren't for the availability of school loans I would have never stepped foot in the building that is now the center of my world and my daughters. We go to school to make a better life for ourselves . . . . Rebecca from Lorain, where I lived for many years, near Lake Erie: When I matriculated at Lawrence University, a private liberal arts college in Appleton, Wisconsin, my family could not afford to contribute more than a few hundred dollars a year to my tuition, fees, and other expenses. I was Pell grant eligible. I took out Stafford loans. I also took out a private loan from my parents' credit union and committed to the full number of hours of federal work-study that I was eligible for. Even as a college freshman, I was deeply aware that the Pell grant, Stafford loans, and federal work-study programs were giving me access to an excellent education that otherwise would have been beyond my reach. I worked hard in my classes, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in two majors: Chemistry and English. I worked hard in my co-curricular activities, editing the college literary magazine and serving as president of the campus feminist organization. I also worked hard in my on- campus jobs: grading papers for the French department, tutoring in the Writing Center, mixing reagents in the Chemistry stockroom, and washing dishes in the student union diner. With the outstanding education I had obtained--and a manageable amount of student loan debt to repay--I chose to go to graduate school in Chemistry. I earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2003 and am now a tenured professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH. I teach bright young people who are interested in making the world a better place. I also conduct research on ovarian cancer detection that has been funded by the NIH. This is my dream job, and it began with the access to an excellent education. It breaks my heart to think that if I were a high school senior today, I might not have the same opportunities to achieve. The Stafford loans, Pell grant, and federal work- study programs helped me become the educated person I am today. These three letters were not different from the others. I just picked the top three my staff gave me from stories we have gotten because of our Web site. I will repeat the Web site: brown.senate.gov/ collegeloanstories. This tells us about work ethic. It tells about opportunity. I will illustrate it in one other way. I cannot do it as well as Nonya and Rebecca and Cody did, but we all remember, if we paid attention to our history, in the forties and fifties, the GI bill gave literally millions of young American men and women returning from serving their country the opportunity to go to school. What the GI bill did was help millions of individual Americans, one at a time. But what that did collectively is it raised all boats. It created a huge amount of prosperity for our country because all these people went to college. A lot of these people bought homes. Colleges were growing and expanding, creating more jobs. These people started businesses. These people were productive workers. These people invented things because they had the education, from going to college. With these Stafford loans, it is not just helping Cody and Rebecca and Nonya and students today, it is helping all of us as a society, whether one goes to college or not. Some people don't want to go to college. Fine. We have career centers and trade schools and community colleges to learn welding, to learn carpentry, to learn how to be a health care worker, to learn rad tech, whatever people want to do, or go to a 4-year college. Give them the opportunity because we don't just help millions of Americans or millions of individual young people, we help society as a whole when we do this. I pray and beg my colleagues, please pass this, keep student loan rates manageable, interest rates manageable so we can have more Rebeccas and Nonyas and Codys in our country. We will all benefit. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 10, 2012, at 9:30 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m. in room SD 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a roundtable entitled ``Medicare Physician Payments: Understanding the Past so We can Envision the Future.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``NATO: Chicago and Beyond.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Beyond Mother's Day: Helping the Middle Class Balance Work and Family'' on May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m. in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 10, 2012, at 10 a.m.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I come to the floor to share some letters I have received about the importance of freezing the 3.4 percent Stafford subsidized college loan program. It is important because there are some 380,000 students in my home State of Ohio alone who are in the Stafford subsidized loan program. Many of them will see as they continue their college education--whether it is at Sinclair Community College in Dayton or Youngstown State or Hiram College--where their costs are continuing to go up. We know the average Ohio 4-year college graduate has about $27,000 in student loan debt. That is much higher than people had a decade ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago or so when my generation was in college. Federally subsidized student loans have been a reliable answer for so many in my State. I wish to encourage people to tell their stories. Some of my colleagues in the Senate are doing this also, but I urge people in Ohio to go to brown.senate.gov/collegeloanstories, and tell your story about how important this is. The disappointment is that 5 years ago this was bipartisan. President Bush signed a bill that many of us here sponsored, in both parties, in a Democratic House, Democratic Senate, a good bipartisan support, signed by a Republican President to lock in for 5 years this 3.4 interest rate. If we do nothing, if we can't get our Republican colleagues to join us on this and then do the same in the House of Representatives to continue this 3.4-percent subsidized Stafford loan, it is going to mean that come July, the average college student will pay about $1,000 more for each year of college. That is unconscionable when college student loans are such a burden. It means people who have these loans at this level, when they get out of school they are less likely to buy a house, less likely to start a family, less likely to start a business. If people will bear with me, I wish to read four or five of these letters I have gotten on our Web site. Nick from Beavercreek, OH: I am a college student at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio studying chemistry and biology. I hope one day, through my education in the sciences, that I might be able to make us a stronger nation through innovation and technology. The fact of the matter is that I would not be able to pursue an education if it were not for student loans from the Government. On behalf of the future of science in this country, which is in trouble already from what I hear, I urge you to reach a bipartisan agreement that would prevent interest rates from doubling. It seems that student debt is unavoidable for the average college student. College already is an expensive investment that shapes our personal finances for the rest of our lives. I ask that you, on behalf of those who are already burdened by debt, to find a way to reach across the aisle on this one and stop interest rates from rising. I ask that you find a way to lighten our load. We would not forget that if you did that for us. We would greatly appreciate policy that opens up avenues to higher education for ourselves as well as for those future seekers of such an education. Justin from Cincinnati, in Southwest Ohio: I am the first person in my family to attend college and am on track to completing my BS in experimental psychology. I plan to go straight into a PHD program after I graduate and the prospect of loan rates doubling is absolutely horrifying. I work full time to be able to support myself but still have about $15,000 in student loans. By no means does this compare to others who have much more in loans but allowing the interest rate to double is unacceptable and severely limiting to individuals such as myself. Lower tuition would boost the number of students attending college making life better for everyone. I don't suggest that everybody should go to college. I know everybody doesn't want to go to college. But I do know that people often need a technical education or a 4-year degree, a 2-year degree at a community college or a technical degree or a 4-year degree at a liberal arts school, a State university or a private school. The choices in my State are huge. We have literally dozens and dozens of small liberal arts schools and 4-year and 2-year community colleges and institutions of higher learning. Students should be allowed, if they choose, to be able to have access to college. Increasingly, it is more difficult for students to do that. Lorie from West Jefferson, OH: I am a full time working mother of three teenage boys as well as a full time college student at Ohio Dominican University. I currently have over $40,000 in student loans. I still have one more year to go before completing my program and earning my Bachelor's degree. By that time my loan amounts will probably be around $50K. About the time I finish college, my oldest son will be beginning college and the student loan process will begin again. He will be the first of three children that we will put through college. Listen to the definitive. She has decided she is going to make sure her kids get a chance to go to school right away. I don't know her, but apparently she didn't get a chance to go until she was older and became married, with children, and has decided to go back to school and is completing her education as her children reach their teens or mid-teens or upper teens. Low interest rates would help make this a little less of a financial burden for me and my family. I do not see how raising interest rates on student loans do anything but cripple those trying to better themselves. The last couple I will read. Linda from Centerberg, OH: We are grandparents of 5 children. We and our children are middle class constituents who live in a rural area close enough to Columbus to commute. Please do not let the interest rate for the Stafford Loan increase in July. Our oldest grandchild is preparing to start college in the fall. She is fourth in her class and shows great promise for a good future in her chosen field, but our children are finding that paying for college is really going to stretch their budget. Please don't put a further burden on our grandchild by increasing the interest rate of a loan she may need to finance her future. So those last two are interesting in that this doesn't just affect college students; this affects the parents; it affects the grandparents. It is important that they don't want welfare. They just want an even shot and a break here. That is so important for this grandmother. People understand that this is going to help everybody if they get to go on to college. The last one I will mention is Carla from Steubenville in eastern Ohio, near the Ohio River: I am very concerned about the raising of interest rates for student loans. I am a mother in a middle class family working to help put my sons through college. I don't expect a handout but I have worked hard to acquire my position as a teacher. My husband and I have exhausted our savings to pay for most of our sons' expenses--even with the support of subsidized and unsubsidized loans. I have put out over $80,000 in my eldest son's college. Please, let's help those that help themselves. If not, then the economy is going to continue to fail. The middle class will go bankrupt just trying to pay for their kids college. I was taught to work and you shall receive but that is not true anymore. Please help the working poor. What I take out of this more than anything is back in the 1940s and 1950s our government, through legislation that President Roosevelt signed in 1944, the GI bill, created a whole generation of prosperity. Millions and millions of young men and women coming out of World War II were given the opportunity to go to college and build homes and get their families started. Because government at one time helped these millions and millions of students, it lifted the entire country. It lifted the economy. We had a much more prosperous economy because all these young men and women went to college because they chose to--millions and millions of them-- because of the GI bill. It meant colleges were built. It meant more highways were built. It meant more businesses were started after they got out of college. This subsidized Stafford Loan, as the Presiding Officer this afternoon knows, as we all know, helping all of the hundreds of thousands--in my State 380,000, in Minnesota more than 200,000 students--helping those hundreds of thousands of students in our two States will help our States become more prosperous. Again, I urge my colleagues to support our legislation. Lock this in. Do it bipartisanly. It was bipartisan 5 years ago, as the highway bill used to be bipartisan, as raising the debt limit used to be bipartisan. Please return to those days when bipartisanship around here was rewarded and was effective. I close by asking people to go to my Web site and tell us your story: brown.senate.gov/collegeloan stories. Tell us your story. I would like to share it with my colleagues because I think putting a human face on this for the student, for the parents who are struggling, even for the grandparents who care so much about the future, as most of our grandparents do, can make a real difference. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent the time from 5:15 to 7 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees and that all quorum calls during that period also be equally divided.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I wish to follow up on Senator Schumer's call to action, if you will, because it appears that things that used to be bipartisan, whether it was the debt ceiling or the Transportation bill or a whole host of other things, has become far too partisan. Back in 2007, the Republican President and Democrats in the House and Senate and Republicans in the House and Senate--but Democratic majorities--froze interest rates for college loans, subsidized Stafford student loans at 3.4 percent for 5 years. All we want to do is we want to continue this. We want to continue it by closing a tax loophole. One political party that does not seem very enthusiastic about freezing these rates anyway seems to be standing in the way. I think the only way this is going to change is if students all over the country come and tell their stories. They can come to my Web site, tell their stories about school financing and how difficult it has been for them. They can come to brown.senate.gov/collegeloanstories and tell us their stories. This past week, I have been to a community college in Cleveland and I have been to Ohio State University in Columbus, Wright State University near Dayton, and the University of Cincinnati and heard many of these stories. I invite students around Ohio--we are asking for them to tell their personal stories. I think, in the end, personal stories will convince my colleagues they should not make this partisan. They should not stand in the way. They should work with us so we can freeze this student loan interest rate at 3.4 percent because I think it will matter. In my State--and I know the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the State of the Presiding Officer, is not much different than that--the average 4-year student in Ohio who graduates has a $27,000 accumulated debt for their 4 years of college. That means those students will have more difficulty--probably will not be able to buy a home or probably will have to delay it, delay getting married or starting a business. I think it is very immoral for us to pile more debt on top of what they already have. If we want to build a prosperous society the way we did with the GI bill--the GI bill provided individual opportunity for millions of students in the 1940s and 1950s, young men and women returning from the war, and it not only helped those millions of students but lifted the country as a whole and created a more vibrant society because we helped so many individuals with the GI bill in those days. This is comparable to that--men and women who want to go to St. Clair Community College or want to go to the Mansfield Campus at Ohio State or want to go to Hiram College or Ohio University in Athens. They want to go to school. We cannot load this much debt onto them. As we put this on our Web site, we expect students to write in and tell their stories. I know they will. We have five stories. I will share a couple of these for today and save a couple more. Bonnie of Elyria, a mother and teacher, writes: I would really like to be able to send my three boys to college. As a public school teacher, I have worked hard to instill in my students the idea of continuing education. However, my own children will most likely have to take out student loans to pursue a college education. Our teachers are not so well paid that they can afford to pay these tuition bills themselves, obviously. With soaring tuition rates, my children will graduate college with more debt than me or my husband had after graduating from college more than 35 years ago. This is not a good way to start a career or a life on their own. This woman gets it. She was a teacher in Ohio. She knew there was sort of an assault on her profession from the Governor and the legislature last year when they tried to take away collective bargaining rights. We know teachers do not make a lot of money, and if their children are to go to school, even less-expensive schools, they so often need to take out student loans. We don't want to raise their interest rates. Katie, from Marion, writes--Marion is a community just north and west of Columbus. I urge you to vote against raising Stafford loan rates. I live with my fiance, who is also attending college full time, and our household brings in less than $35,000 a year. I am working part time in order to attend college full time. With college tuition and expenses being so expensive, adding in the normal cost of living, it is a struggle to make ends meet every month. I understand and respect the legislative process and, unlike many people I know, I still have faith it can be effective. I know that compromises have to be made for change to occur. However, I am worried that by the time everyone is on the same page, the Government will have either taken so long to come up with a solution or cut funding so much, that the average American can no longer afford to pursue a college degree. . . . I hope that if nothing else, you take away from this that there are Ohioans in this for the long run. We will not accept anything less than what we deserve, and education is not negotiable. The last one I will read is by RaShya, of Toledo. I am a second year law student at the University of Minnesota law school. I am a native of Toledo, OH and received my BA in political science with honors and an MBA in finance from the University of Toledo.'' I am the product of a single-parent home and a first- generation college graduate. My mother is a cancer survivor and my father was shot and killed when I was ten. I am the eldest of three children. My education has been a miracle of sorts and allowed me to change the circumstances of my environment. It was only possible through scholarship money and federal loans. I am deeply saddened by the rate hikes that loom in July of this year. Making education less accessible hurts others that grew up in circumstances similar to mine. This economy requires a good college education but the promise of employment is still uncertain. Raising loan rates hurts students. Please vote to extend the rate cuts that threaten to expire this July. Those three letters so speak for themselves where students just want an opportunity. They are not asking for welfare or a handout, they just want to keep interest rates low so they can go to college without such a huge, onerous, burdensome debt they will never get out from under it. Why would we do this to this generation? My wife was the first in her family to go to college. Her dad carried a union card, worked at the illuminating company. Her mother was a home care worker who went back to work when Connie started college to try to help them pay--and she graduated. She had very little help from her family financially because she was the eldest of four children. She got low-interest loans, and she graduated with only a couple thousand dollars of debt from Kent State University. Those days seem to be behind us. We should at least aim for that kind of situation today where young people get a better chance, more of a fighting chance when they come out of school. I urge my colleagues to listen to these stories and to read some of them and to vote accordingly when we bring this bill back to the floor. Today there was a vote, and more than 40 of our colleagues said: We are not even going to allow this bill on the floor to debate. That is pretty unconscionable to me when we hear the stories of these young people. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I rise in support of the same legislation, and I appreciate the work of Senator Murray and Senator Klobuchar. I introduced this legislation with Senator Harkin of Iowa and Senator Reed of Rhode Island, and in the last couple of weeks I have been to the Cayuga County Community College, a community college in Cleveland, Ohio State University, Wright State University near Dayton, and the University of Cincinnati. There were student bodies, student government people in both political parties there. There is virtually universal support among students for this legislation. We have no business letting the interest rate double. The vote that will take place in less than 1 hour gives us an opportunity to help students in a huge way. The average Ohio graduate of a 4-year university has a $27,000 student debt. If we are going to pile more money on that debt by allowing the interest rate to go from 3.4 to 6.8 percent, it means that student is less likely to be able to buy a house, less likely to probably start a family, and less likely to be able to start a business. It saps wealth from our community. If we can keep this interest rate at 3.4 percent, it will pay dividends much more than the cost of this. I would close by saying this was a bipartisan arrangement. Back in 2007, when Senator Klobuchar and I were in our first year in the Senate, President Bush signed legislation brought forward and passed by a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House, with Republican support. So it had broad bipartisan support to lock in 3.4 percent for 5 years. Why are people making it partisan now? The fact is we should pass this legislation today. We should pay for it in a way by closing these tax loopholes that are called the Newt Gingrich-John Edwards tax loopholes, where both of them--Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and John Edwards, a Democrat--in their private sector lives have legally been able to avoid tens of thousands of dollars in taxes. Lobbying firms, consulting firms, all have used this loophole. Governor Romney wanted to close this loophole when he was Governor of Massachusetts. It is something we should move forward on and put the partisanship aside and pass this. This is good for individual students, just like the GI bill after World War II was good for millions of individual students. Look what it did for our society as a whole. It made us a richer country, a more prosperous country, a more egalitarian country. What is not to like about that? That is why we should pass this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I understand there are four bills at the desk, and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I now ask for a second reading en bloc, and I object to my own request en bloc.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, earlier today, Senator Durbin and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing in Cleveland to examine efforts that could hinder the ability of Ohioans to exercise one of their fundamental constitutional rights, the right to vote. These efforts, in the guise of preventing fraud, are part of a cynical effort to impede access to the ballot. Specifically, H.B. 194 in Ohio repeals a number of commonsense measures that assist people with voting. For 8 years I served as secretary of state of Ohio, charged with administering elections, so I understand what goes into ensuring the fundamental right to vote. Inherent in that responsibility is ensuring that voting is accessible, free of intimidation and roadblocks. As a State, over a period of decades, Ohio legislators undertook a bipartisan--and I underscore that word ``bipartisan''--effort to help Ohioans get access to the polls. When I was secretary of state, we had significant input and assistance from Republicans as we made voting laws work for huge numbers of people. We understood Ohioans had many priorities pulling them in many directions so we ought to make registration accessible. People could register using utility bills. The electric company included registration forms in utility bills. McDonald's, at my request, printed 1 million tray liners so people could actually fill them out to register to vote. At the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, people could register to vote. This was bipartisan. The legislature, when acting, would expand this right to vote, make sure this right to vote was protected. It was generally bipartisan. Today, rather than protecting the right to vote, we are seeing brazen attempts to undermine it. We are told this bill and laws similar to it will reduce costs and reduce the risk of voter fraud. The overwhelming evidence, however, indicates that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent and these new laws will make it harder and more costly for hundreds of thousands of Ohioans to exercise the right to vote and more costly for the election system, meaning taxpayer--county boards of elections and all that. Voters are simply not going to awaken one morning in Cleveland and vote and then drive to Elyria and then vote and then drive to Norwalk and then vote, then drive to Adena and then vote and then drive to Mansfield and then vote. People are not going to defraud the system that way. Why? No. 1, they are going to get caught, probably; and second, they are going to go to jail--all to take the risk of giving Barack Obama or Mitt Romney five more votes in a State of 11 million people. That is not going to happen. Yet the people who are attacking our voting rights are claiming individuals are going to do things such as that to defraud--college students voting in college and then voting back in their hometown. People are not going to do that because the disincentives are too strong, the penalties are too harsh. There is simply no reason, so one can vote one extra time, that someone would possibly do that. Let me tell a little bit about this new law. The new law--and what is disappointing to me--this new law repeals what was a bipartisan effort in 2006. In 2006, in response to some election problems of 2004 in the Presidential race, where people stood in long lines to vote, and there were other problems--in 2006, the Republican House and the Republican Senate in Columbus and the Republican Governor--with support from Democrats, so it was clearly bipartisan--passed voter reforms to set up early voting, to set up 1 week where voting and voter registration and early voting overlapped so people could actually register and vote during that week in early October. We did other things that made registration and voting more accessible. But in spite of that, in spite of the consensus in Ohio about voting, now there is an effort to undercut that consensus. First, the law significantly reduces the early voting window. It takes away Saturday, Sunday, and Monday voting before the election, when over 100,000 people voted in Ohio that year, in 2008. This reduction in early voting was made despite the fact that evidence overwhelmingly indicates that limiting early voting will actually cost the taxpayers, boards of elections, money. Make no mistake, cutting Sunday voting was intended to suppress voting. On the Sunday before election, Ohioans, who work long hours during the week, often go to the polls after church, fulfilling their civic and spiritual obligations on the same day. By ending early voting, the lines outside polling stations on election day will only get longer. The costs will only increase. This increases frustration and limits voting. Another burden posed by H.R. 194 is that it bars poll workers from performing one of their most basic functions, helping voters find their right precinct. This law no longer requires that poll workers assist a confused, elderly, disabled or young voter in getting to their correct precinct. Here is how it works. We have tried to save money. As more people voted earlier, relieving some of the pressure on election day, the boards of elections have combined voting precincts. Instead, we will have fewer precincts in the same county and have to hire fewer poll workers. What that also means is sometimes they combine these precincts in these voting stations into one building so people might walk into a polling station and go to the wrong table. Under the law now, the poll worker is not required to help that person and say: No, you can't vote here, but you can vote across in the room next door, at this church or at this school. Someone today might walk in and the poll worker will simply say you are not eligible to vote in this precinct and they will walk home and not vote. This law discourages in many ways. Because these poll workers are people who live in the neighborhoods it discourages neighbors helping neighbors. This is a solution in search of a problem. It is not something we need to do. There was consensus in Ohio that things needed to change after 2004. The laws enacted in 2006 led to shorter lines, more clarity, and less frustration for voters. While none of the changes I mention today make it impossible to vote, they build burdens to voting, burdens that have no good reason. That will mean fewer minority voters, fewer young voters, fewer elderly voters, fewer disabled voters. That may be what some politicians in this town want, but it is not what the people of Ohio want. Ohio deserves better when it comes to protecting our most fundamental constitutional rights. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until Tuesday, May 8, at 10 a.m.; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2343, the Stop Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act, with the time until noon evenly divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; and that following the remarks of the two leaders, the majority control the first 30 minutes and the Republicans control the second 30 minutes; and that following the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 2343, the Senate recess until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, the first vote tomorrow will be at noon on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2343, the Stop Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, late last month I brought to Washington 55 or so college presidents from Ohio--presidents of 2-year and 4-year private and public colleges and universities--to discuss a whole host of issues. One subject that always comes up when you talk about young people, when you talk about college, when you talk about universities, is access to higher education, that far too many of our young people simply can't afford to go to college. My wife, a graduate of Kent State some 30 years ago, was privileged in those days even though nobody in her family had ever gone to college. Her dad carried a union card, was a utility worker in Ashtabula, OH, working as a maintenance worker in a local powerplant. She was able to go to school because in those days college was more accessible--Pell grants, some loans, tuition was significantly lower--and she was able to be the first in her family to go to college, and she went to Kent State University. Today it is much harder. Tuition is far too high. Pell grants haven't kept up with the cost of education the way they might have 30 years ago. One of the options we have, the subsidized Stafford loan, which is available to students based on need and is often the main pathway to college for a number of them, is under stress, if you will. If we do nothing, if Congress doesn't do anything, the interest on these critical loans will double for borrowers beginning July 1, 2012. So the interest rates will actually double on those students if Congress does nothing. The interest rate right now is 3.4 percent. That is why they are called subsidized Stafford loans. We know that investing in our young people this way, giving them an opportunity to go to college, which they couldn't otherwise, could make such a difference in their lives. A number of people don't want to go to college. That is fine. Those who want to go should have that opportunity. Student debt in this country has reached about $870 billion, exceeding credit cards and auto loans. As more and more students continue to enroll in higher education, balances are expected to continue climbing. This means fewer of our young adults will be able to buy a home, start a business, or continue on to graduate school. Already, students graduate from 4-year colleges and universities in Ohio with, on average, about $27,000 in student loan debt. If the interest rates double, it will add another $2,000 in debt for the average borrower and as much as an additional $5,000 for the neediest borrower on subsidized Stafford student loans. A number in this institution in the Senate on the Democratic side are trying to convince our colleagues how important it is that we stop this interest rate from doubling. We must act before July 1. Just as we have an obligation to keep college affordable for middle- class Americans and working-class Americans, we have as great an obligation to keep college accessible to American veterans. This year more than 500,000 servicemembers and veterans are expected to take advantage of the post-9/11 GI bill, a bill we passed out of the Veterans' Affairs Committee to ensure that all veterans could afford the rising cost of college. The VA is expected to spend some $11 billion in education benefits and other GI bill benefits this year alone. We know in the 1940s and 1950s what the first GI bill did--signed near the end of World War II--how it created a whole generation of prosperity and a strong middle class. We know that the GI Bill of Rights, which the House and Senate passed I believe 3 years ago, has begun to help large numbers of veterans again. Unfortunately, servicemembers and veterans are often aggressively recruited by some educational institutions that use misleading information. For instance, if you visit the Web site gibill.com, it directs a veteran to enter his or her personal and contact information to obtain information about the GI bill's educational benefits. It looks just like a government Web site, but it is not. It turns around and sells that veteran's information, often to for-profit colleges. Earlier today, I was welcomed at a VFW post in Cleveland by Jason Plezko, the commander of that post. I met with Brad Sonenstein, a U.S. Air Force veteran now studying at Kent State, and Joshua Rider, the assistant director of the Center for Adult and Veteran Services at Kent State University. Brad explained how he was inundated with offers and letters when he was exploring how to utilize his well-earned GI benefits. Those offers overwhelmingly came from for-profit colleges. He said they were more interested in their own bottom line than helping those who served in the front lines. That is simply not right. No one is in a better position to make a decision as to what is best for them as a veteran than the veteran herself or the veteran himself. We can play a role in assisting them. The GI Bill Consumer Awareness Act provides veterans with more and better information about their benefits, calls for improved education counseling, and gives colleges new resources to hire people such as Joshua Rider to help returning veterans. It requires all institutions of higher education to disclose critical information, such as the average student loan debt, the transferability of credits, and accurate job-placement data. We do that at our State universities. We do that at most of our not-for-profit private schools. We do that at our 2-year community colleges. Those using the GI bill tend to be older than the average student population. They choose to serve our Nation, often right out of high school rather than going straight to college. Because of this many have families and careers and other challenges their classmates don't have. Giving our veterans the tools to make the best possible decisions benefits all of them. That is the importance of the GI Bill Consumer Awareness Act. I particularly thank Senator Murray, chair of the Veterans' Committee, for her work on this legislation. This body should pass it immediately. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for up to 10 minutes.