John Boehner: 'We will' resolve the student loan interest rate fight

Speaker John Boehner
This is a turn-around from a few weeks ago when student loan interest rates weren't a priority for Republicans. House Speaker John Boehner says that, one way or another, Congress will extend lowered interest rates for student loans.

'Democrats and Republicans have been working together to get this resolved and I believe that we will,' the Speaker said. [...]

Boehner signaled that he's willing to work with Reid, once Congress returns next week, to negotiate on an offset for the $6 billion cost of keeping the Stafford loan rate at 3.4 percent, as it has been for five years. (Doing so would mean $1,000 in the pockets of about 7.4 million students.)

What a difference a few weeks and the presidential bully pulpit makes, since just a few weeks ago House Republicans were opposed to extending lowered interest rates on student loans at all. President Obama's focus on the issue the last few weeks, and the huge response he got from it, convinced Republicans that they'd be on the wrong side of public opinion to continue stonewalling on it (well, all but 30 diehard tea partiers).

So now it's back to the old fight (since this isn't tax breaks for rich people) of how to pay for it. Just like with the payroll tax cut extension. This time around, the Republicans gut a public health fund, drawing a veto threat, and Democrats have offered a pay-for that Republicans haven't objected to in the past. That's closing a loophole that allows certain high-income businessowners to avoid paying Medicare payroll taxes.

'We didn't propose something that would be rejected out of hand,' Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters in the Capitol last week. 'They proposed something that they know we have rejected over and over again.'

'We didn't propose the Buffett Rule in the Senate, we didn't propose [ending] the oil and gas [subsidies],' Schumer said. 'It [payroll tax loophole] was on the table for a long time ' during the payroll tax discussions. They didn't take it off the table. It's a reasonable thing.'

Which, of course, Republicans deny. Even though their leader, Rep. Paul Ryan, bases his whole "revenue neutral" scheme of giving tax cuts to the rich on the premise of closing loopholes, these are loopholes that suddenly the Republicans love, and closing them would'you guessed it'increase taxes on those job-creatin' small businesses.

Watching how fast Republican leadership came round to the idea that they absolutely have to go along with keeping student loan interest rates low means that Democrats do have the advantage in this fight. As usual. How it's paid for is going to come down to who can hold their breath longer. As usual. This time, everything is stacked in favor of the Democrats holding out the longest. They just have to do it.