Senate Leaders Agree on Bill to Extend Student Loans

The $6.7 billion agreement would extend the current 3.4 percent rate on Stafford loans for one year, with about $700 million extra for deficit reduction, according to Senate leadership aides. The bulk of that — $5.5 billion — would come from two pension measures. One would change how private pension interest payments are calculated, smoothing the fluctuations for businesses even as the total cost rises slightly. The other would come from higher premiums for companies participating in the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Another $1.2 billion would come from limiting how long a student could receive Stafford loans to 150 percent of the average time it takes to complete a degree. Currently there are no limits.

“We’re pleased that the Senate has reached a deal to keep rates low and continue offering hard-working students a fair shot at affordable education,” said the White House press secretary, Jay Carney.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the minority leader, said the White House was not involved in reaching the compromise.

Attention will now shift to House Republicans, who already passed a loan extension, paid for by a preventive care fund from the health care law that Democrats had declared unacceptable.

House Republicans huddled with Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio on Tuesday evening, trying to find a way to link the loan deal with a measure extending federal highway and transit programs. The goal, aides said, was to be able to take a final vote on Friday, ahead of the July 4 recess.

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Florida Democrats Struggle To Connect With Latino Voters, Elect Hispanic Leaders - Huffingtonpost.com

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida Democrats have seen their registration numbers swell in recent years, due in large part to a surge in Hispanic voters.

But despite their success on paper, state Democratic officials are struggling to connect with Hispanics, who have little representation among the party's Florida leadership. That could spell trouble not just for the future of the party in a state that's now nearly a quarter Latino, but also for President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who will be counting on Latino support during tough races next year.

"There's no bench here. Democrats don't cultivate Hispanic leaders," said Freddy Balsera, who heads a Hispanic-focused public relations firm in Miami and serves on the Democratic National Committee's finance team.

That's a problem for the party statewide but especially true in South Florida, where Cuban exiles have long been loyal to the Republican Party and have built their influence over decades. The list of high-level Republican GOP Hispanics includes U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, South Florida's three members of Congress and state House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera. The run-off for Miami-Dade County mayor pitted two Republican Cuban-Americans against each other.

Meanwhile, only three Latino Democrats serve in the state House, none in the Senate. And as the state begins the process of redrawing political boundaries to conform with population changes since 2000 – which will likely lead to at least one new heavily Hispanic congressional seat – Democratic party officials have been slow to respond.

Joe Garcia, a past head of Miami-Dade Democrats and former Obama appointee who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, said Republicans have been more aggressive in going after Latino voters.

"The Republican Party views Hispanics in terms of market share: Who are they? How do we reach them? Democrats still view us in terms of quotas," Garcia said.

Florida Hispanics, like Latinos nationwide, provided overwhelming support in 2008 for Obama thanks to a national get-out-the-vote effort. Since December of that year, 73,000 have registered in the state as Democrats and another 76,000 have registered while declaring no party. There have been 31,000 new Hispanic Republicans.

The growth in Democratic voters has come in part from younger, more progressive Cuban Americans and a wave of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.

But that didn't help Florida Democrats in last year's election, as turnout of their Hispanic members dropped sharply – even more than among other Democratic voters – according to party leaders. It was one reason why the Democrats lost races for governor and U.S. Senate as well as other statewide contests.

For Democratic Hispanic Caucus leader Jose Fernandez in Orlando, that drop came as no surprise. The Army veteran recalled how Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink bought few Spanish-language ads and toured a local Puerto Rican community center only weeks before the election, when narrowly lost.

"People still thought she was a man with a name like Alex," he said. "We don't work like that. We have to see people, hear them."

The Democrats' challenge in Florida comes as the party expects to do well again nationally with Latinos in 2012, in part because of GOP attacks on the immigration issue.

But Hispanics in Florida are somewhat of an anomaly. Cubans, who make up the majority, are generally allowed to stay in the country as soon as they touch U.S. soil, and Puerto Ricans are already citizens. Among the state's growing South and Central American communities, many have yet to be naturalized.

Patrick Manteiga, publisher of a trilingual Tampa newspaper (Spanish, English and Italian), said the party needs to reach out to new leaders like those at the region's thriving Hispanic churches, many of them evangelical.

"The pastors may be conservative Republicans, but there are many Democrats among their congregants," he said.

Scott Arceneaux, executive director of the state Democratic party, said the party is trying to improve outreach, but he conceded his party could take a page from the Republicans when it comes to Hispanics.

"They have absolutely done a better job than we have," he said. "It's finding young school commissioners, your business and community leaders. You've got to identify those people and help bring them along."

Earlier this year, Florida Democrats hired a Puerto Rican community activist from Orlando to head Hispanic outreach efforts. But the party declined to make her available to The Associated Press for an interview.

Luis Garcia, one of the party's three state representatives, said he's urged the Democrats to hire someone to do similar work in South Florida.

"Where we have been failing, is that we have not been attracting the younger voters," said Garcia, a retired fire chief who is being courted to run for Congress against embattled South Florida Republican David Rivera.

Arceneaux blames the lack of elected Hispanic Democrats on districts created a decade ago by the Republican-controlled Legislature following the 2000 Census. But as the state gears up again for redistricting, local Democrats have missed key opportunities.

In Orange County, many Puerto Ricans were angered when officials failed to appoint any to a redistricting committee even though they make up a third of the county. Local Democrats were slow to react to the flap, even though Puerto Ricans tend to support them.

Similarly, in neighboring Hillsborough County, it took a New York-based Latino civil rights group from New York to help propose a county commission redistricting map that accurately reflected Hispanic growth. The mostly Republican commission nixed that map during a recent hearing. Local Democratic leaders were largely absent, attending their monthly meeting.

At the national level, the Obama campaign has set up Spanish-language phone banks in Florida and is planning a grass-roots organizing meeting later this month.

But Fernandez and others say engagement with Latinos should be about more than electing a Democratic president every four years.

Amy Mercado, chair of the Orange County Democrats, said she wants to see people in office like herself "who may be Hispanic, who are married and have to juggle and still do it all."

But she added: "They're not going to field a candidate just because it has a Hispanic name. I'm a Hispanic, Latina, but I'm a Democratic Latina. I'd rather have someone who's really going to push Democratic ideals than just have someone whose Hispanic or Latina."

She said the party is beginning to recognize people like herself, but that Hispanic Democrats also need to demonstrate they can act independently.

She should know. Last year, Mercado, a manager for the National Mango Board, ran a $64,000 maiden campaign against the powerful Florida House speaker, a Republican. With less than $2,000 in cash and $5,000 worth of in-kind contributions from the party, she won 40 percent of the vote.

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Obama, Biden to meet House Democratic leaders (AP)

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to meet with House Democratic leaders Thursday to discuss the status of ongoing bipartisan deficit reduction talks. The meeting comes as Democrats want the president to rule out Medicare benefit cuts as part of any budget deal.

The White House said the meeting will address deficit reduction through a "balanced framework," a term the White House uses to describe cuts in spending coupled with increased tax revenue. Republicans have rejected talk of tax increases, though Senate Republicans did vote to end ethanol tax subsidies.

Scheduled to attend the meeting are Vice President Joe Biden, and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the party's second in command, assistant Democratic leader James Clyburn, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a participant in the Biden-led budget negotiations.

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Note to Ohio Democratic Leaders: Life is Not a Kindergarten Classroom (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Business as usual is not what Ohio or American voters want. The time for political speeches and partisan rhetoric has long since passed. The Buckeye State will soon have a budget that will fix the nearly $8 billion deficit without raising taxes; this is the type of action Ohioans want to see from elected officials.

Life is not a kindergarten classroom, a fact that has been lost on Ohio House and Senate Democrats. After 74 hours of discussion and 15 hearings, complaints about Republicans moving too quickly and feeling "left out" of the budgetary discussion by Democrats is falling on deaf ears.

The fear of taking action is not a condition specific to only Ohio liberals. Flip through the news networks and you will hear more of the same from Democrats throughout the nation. There is a fine line between reasonable discussion and redundant lip-flapping which serves no constructive purpose.

Democrats did not offer an alternative to the conservative budget plan to dig Ohio out of an increasing mound of debt. While the Democrats continue to bemoan the fiscally responsible measures contained in Senate Bill 5, they did not offer even one amendment to the pending bill. Before the final vote on the legislation multiple liberal leaders stated it would be pointless to offer amendments which they knew they did not have the votes to pass. Liberals cannot have it both ways. Claiming to have not been included in the discussion and then deliberately choosing to sit brooding in the corner are the antics of a five year old.

Putting politics as usual aside is the only way to get Ohio back on track economically. Spouting tired rhetoric centering on Republicans being for "big business" will do nothing but slow down the recovery and alienate those individuals who actually create jobs and pay taxes to fund the beloved liberal entitlement programs.

A safety net for Ohioans who have fallen on hard times is a worthy goal, but creating a generational lifestyle based upon handouts from taxpayers through government programs is not. Progressive lawmakers and advocates can rattle off program guidelines detailing time limits for assistance, but far too many residents are milking the system and soaking up money earned by others for cradle to the grave assistance.

The two Columbus City School principals who committed both theft and fraud to get their children on the federal school lunch program designed to ensure impoverished children can eat breakfast and lunch at school are a prime example of entitlement program abuse.

Tara Dodrill is a political, eco-green and travel writer. She is a real estate agent and former elected official, public school employee and coach from Ohio who has worked as a newspaper journalist, editor and photographer for magazines and online media outlets. Follow Tara on Twitter.

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Democratic leaders warned Weiner about calls for resignation (Daily Caller)

Following criticism that Democratic party leaders had waited too long to call for a resignation from New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, Roll Call reports that the statements from yesterday came after days of behind-the-scenes attempt to persuade Weiner to step down.

According to Roll Call, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi first thought Weiner needed to resign after his Monday press conference (during which he came clean after a period of lying and question-dodging) went awry. Weiner had called Pelosi just prior to taking the stage to field questions from reporters, and she told him he needed to tell the truth before they could determine the next step.

After days of applied pressure, party leaders individually called Weiner on Saturday morning to give him one final chance to step down before the party would go into attack mode. He refused.

Weiner did propose a leave of absence, during which he would seek “professional help,” but Pelosi told him that wouldn’t be good enough. Weiner also hinted at a possible resignation after the leave, but that wouldn’t have been satisfactory to top Democrats either.

(Wasserman Schultz, Pelosi call on Weiner to resign)

By the time news broke that Weiner had been communicating online with a female high school student from Delaware, the decision to send out party leaders to call for resignation was “already made,” a Democratic aide told Roll Call.

Though Weiner hasn’t responded to the statements yesterday from Pelosi, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Steve Israel, he hasn’t shown any indication that he plans to resign.

Roll Call also reports that Weiner isn’t an easy Member to push out of office. He’s done nothing illegal or explicitly against House rules (though an ethics investigation has been called for). And he isn’t dependent on the party for campaign money; he has his own large network of donors.

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