Student's Advocate: Congresswoman Baldwin

Congresswoman Baldwin has taken a unique focus on this US Senate race. Although summer is here and college students are bagging groceries and painting houses to pay the bills, she is working to keep their interest rates low. While the Republican primary has four candidates battling for the parties nomination, Baldwin is running essentially unopposed in the Democrat primary and is able to focus on the issues she wants to address. One such issue is the inevitable rise of student loan interest rates. Rates are set to double from 3.4% to 6.8% this July. It is part of a provision passed in 2007 that temporarily lowered the rates for five years.

Today in Milwaukee at MATC Congresswoman Baldwin continued her tour around Wisconsin colleges about this increase. She was introduced by the state chairmen of the College Democrats and accompanied by a dozen students holding Baldwin 2012 signs. The Congresswomen laid out the issue and explained that she had tried to counter the increase that Congress knew was coming, but a deal could not be made. Her solution is the Buffet Rule. The Buffet Rule raising taxes on the highest tax bracket (roughly those making over $1,000,000 a year). I asked the Congresswoman if that increase would be enough to finance keeping the rates froze at 3.4% and she said that it was, but that was not the only issue at hand. She explained we need tax fairness where the rich are taxed at an equivalent rate to lessen to strain on the middle class.

Here is a clip from the event. I will be posting as much footage as my hard drive allows from events in the future.