Obama's Weekly Address March 27

Transcript

Obama Signs Healthcare Part 2 in Virginia March 30

Update March 30: Watch video of Obama signing the bill/speaking here.

Update March 29: Obama will speak at 11:05 am eastern. Jill Biden will also be in attendance. The event will be audio streamed at WhiteHouse.gov and it's likely to be live streamed at msnbc.com.

This is the second part of healthcare, the so-called reconciliation bill that just passed the House yesterday. The bill also has the student loan reform, which begins July 1, 2010:

On Tuesday morning, March 30th at Northern Virginia Community College, President Obama will sign the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which delivered a significant down payment on the President's ambitious agenda to make higher education more affordable and help more Americans earn a college degree.

Student Loan Reform to Piggyback on Health Bill

If the two are going in tandem, it must mean the student loan bill is pretty well liked by democrats. I don't think it's a bargaining chip. If you want to know more about the process of attaching the student loan reform to the health bill, read this. This is a good explainer as to why they might be doing this.

As of today, Pelosi says no public option in the health bill. I think that was a given.

Steny Hoyer said the House is moving ahead without a deal on new abortion language, to which Bart Stupak threatens that he and a dozen others may vote against health reform. He could be bluffing. John Boehner says the bill doesn't have the votes to pass and if it does pass, then republicans will try to repeal.

House Democrats plan to attach reform of the federal student loan system to the health care overhaul legislation, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said today. Folding student loan legislation into the reconciliation bill for health care reform “fixes” could allow the Obama administration to pass two of their top domestic priorities with a simple Senate majority vote.

“Joining these two bills presents a remarkable opportunity for our country,” Chairman of the House Education Committee Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said yesterday. More at ABC

Student loan reform looks like a winner to me:

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act would cut out the middle man from federal student loan programs and give students the chance to borrow directly from the federal government instead of from banks. The bill, which passed the House in September, would also greatly expand the Pell grant program for low-income students.

When the bill passed the House it had an estimated savings of $87 billion over ten years. Since then that number has dropped to $67 billion as colleges have joined the “Direct Lending” program and reduced the amount of revenue that would be available for new spending.

Not surprisingly, banks have lobbied aggressively against the bill.

House Bill Would Expand Student Loan Lending and Pell Grants

This is the bill Obama talked about at the University of Maryland rally today:

The House is poised to vote to push private lenders out of the federal college loan business and massively expand the government's own lending program.

Following a day of debate, House lawmakers were expected to approve on Thursday a student aid bill that has widespread support, including from the White House. The measure will then go to the Senate, where its fate is somewhat less certain.

Putting the government in charge of all federal loans would save taxpayers an estimated $87 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO says the figure could be much lower, $47 billion, when administrative costs and market conditions are considered. More at MSNBC.

Sallie Mae About Face on Subsidies

For the past two decades, every attempt to overhaul the $85-billion-a-year student loan industry by eliminating subsidies to lenders has faced insurmountable opposition from one of the most powerful institutions in the business: Sallie Mae, the world's largest student loan company.

But in a dramatic reversal, the lending behemoth now supports President Obama's efforts to kill the subsidies it has tried to protect for so long. Instead, the company has offered a proposal that calls for the government to hold on to the loans and pay private companies for originating and servicing them.

Sallie's plan is still slightly different from the one advanced by the administration, which entails the government originating loans itself. But the company's turnaround, which surprised many in the industry, could make it more likely that the administration will succeed in transforming the way that millions of students pay to attend college. Read the rest at WaPo

Read about Obama's student loan plan here. Obama wants to end the Federal Family Education Loans program, which subsidizes private lenders, and replace it with the Direct Loan program and give more Pell grants.