Student loan, roads bill poised for final passage

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Hoping to avert the kind of headlines politicians dread, congressional leaders are aiming for final passage by week's end of legislation reshaping federal transportation programs and preventing a doubling of interest rates for millions of new student loans.

Without action by Saturday, federal authority to conduct road, mass transit and other transportation programs would end, along with the government's ability to collect gasoline and diesel taxes that fund most of those programs, costing what Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said would be 3 million jobs. Democrats and Republicans were eager to avoid blame for shuttering transportation projects when voters are focused on the nation's weak employment market.

"The highway bill boils down to one simple thing: jobs," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a bargainer on the legislation.

House and Senate leaders reached agreement Wednesday on the transportation and student loan measures and decided to wrap them together in hopes of sidestepping parliamentary obstacles and speeding Congress' work. Provisions renewing and revamping federal flood insurance were included as well.

On the highway measure, Republicans dropped demands for one provision forcing federal approval of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, and another blocking the government from regulating toxic ash produced by coal-fired power plants. In exchange, Republicans won concessions curbing environmental reviews for highway projects and diverting money away from bike paths and pedestrian safety projects.

With each party blocking the other's top legislative initiatives, Democrats and Republicans said the highway bill loomed as Congress' most prolific job-creating measure until the November elections. It would give states more flexibility to spend federal money, impose new safety regulations and expand a federal loan guarantee program to encourage private investments in transportation projects.

Unless lawmakers act this week, interest rates for subsidized Stafford loans issued starting Sunday would double to 6.8 percent. That automatic increase was approved by Congress five years ago to save money, but few lawmakers want to face voters after infuriating millions of college students and their parents by driving up school costs.

The increase, if not avoided, would affect 7.4 million students projected to get the loans during the 12 months starting Sunday. It would cost each an extra $1,000, on average, over the decade or more it typically takes to repay the money.

"At a time when we're trying to get our economy recovering, do you really want to raise the rates on students?" said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leader of House conservatives.

The student loan measure has been a political battlefield for months, with President Barack Obama touring the country to accuse Republicans of not acting to prevent the rate increase. Though some GOP lawmakers have opposed the rate freeze, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney and Republican congressional leaders said two months ago that they supported it, and the sole remaining fight has been over how to pay for it.

The student loan measure was projected to cost $6 billion.

Under the compromise, $1.2 billion would be paid for by limiting federal subsidies for undergraduates to a maximum of six years. Currently those subsidies ? a period during which the government does not charge interest ? can last as long as it takes an undergraduate to get a diploma.

Another $5 billion would come from changing how companies calculate the money they must set aside for their pension programs. The changes would make their annual contributions lower and less variable, in effect reducing their tax deductions.

An additional $500 million would come from pegging to inflation the fees companies pay to federally insure their pensions.

Aides said the pension proposals might end up raising more than $18 billion in the final legislation, with the excess helping pay for the transportation measure.

The federal flood insurance program, which protects 5.6 million households and businesses, has gone deeply into the red from claims after 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Senate legislation would try to return the program to fiscal soundness by allowing premium increases and reducing subsidies for vacation homes.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-06-28-Student%20Loans-Highways/id-fd3b6717349f4835bd822baef34ffaa1

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Video: Holder held in contempt of Congress

>>> eric holder today became the first united states attorney general ever to be held in contempt of congress. the vote was a result of a dispute over a botched federal anti-gun trafficking operation known as fast and furious . some of the guns ended up in mexico. two of them were found at the scene of a fatal shooting of a u.s. border patrol agent. house republicans say holder misled them about the operation and that he is withholding documents. they're accusing the justice department of a coverup. we get a late report tonight from nbc's kelly o'donnell.

>> reporter: in a rare act of protest, most democrats walked off the house floor, refused to vote, and headed out the capitol door.

>> shame on you! shame on you. shame on you.

>> reporter: they insist the attorney general eric holder is being treated unfairly.

>> this is not about oversight. this is about overkill.

>> reporter: inside the chamber --

>> i don't take this matter lightly, and i would, frankly, hope it would never come to this.

>> reporter: -- house republicans joined by more than a dozen democrats voted to sanction the attorney general. they say holder failed to turn over subpoenaed documents that might explain why the justice department gave congress false information.

>> whoops, sorry. that's not good enough.

>> we were lied to. we were lied to repeatedly and over a ten-month period.

>> reporter: after the vote, holder responded with pointed language toward republicans.

>> today's vote may make for good political theet innater in the minds of some but it is at base a crass effort and grave ser disservice to the american people .

>> reporter: tonight the white house dismissed the contempt against holder calling it a politically transparent stunt. the president injected himself last week by claiming executive privilege over some of these documents shielding them from congress. house republicans say they will continue to fight for access and fight for answers. brian?

>> kelly o'donnell after an eventful

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Video: Are You a Financial Thrill-Seeker?

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5 Reasons You May Not Be Able To Get Car Insurance Cheapest ...

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Some Democrats are skipping national convention (The Arizona Republic)

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UK mired in recession, central bank poised to act

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's economy fell back into recession faster than first thought and seems unlikely to recover for some time, data showed on Thursday, echoing grim predictions from a central bank now all but certain to revive its stimulus program next week.

The economy shrank by 0.3 percent between January and March, the Office for National Statistics said. That confirmed an earlier estimate, but revised figures for the last quarter of 2011 showed a slump of 0.4 percent, steeper than initially reported.

A spread of downbeat data highlighted broad weakness in Britain's economy, which has struggled to gain traction since the 2007/08 financial crisis as government spending cuts bite and the debt turmoil in the euro zone crushes confidence.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said on Tuesday that the outlook had worsened significantly in recent weeks and Britain risked falling into a downward spiral as businesses put off investment due to uncertain global prospects.

Thursday's data bolstered an already strong case for the BoE to restart its quantitative easing bond-buying program, a day after a Reuters poll of economists give a median 75 percent chance that the bank will flood the market with another 50 billion pounds of cash at its July 4/5 meeting.

"You have a lot of volatility entering the UK economic data over the next couple of quarters, including the negative impact from the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday," said Philip Shaw, economist at Investec.

"Our best guess is that the economy is broadly flat-lining and to our minds it justifies further monetary stimulus."

SLOWING DOWN

The decline in UK economic output in the first three months of this year would have been much greater were it not for the biggest jump in government spending in almost 7 years and a small rise in service sector output.

Construction output was revised lower to show its biggest decline in three years, while industrial output was also revised down to show a 0.5 percent decline on the quarter.

Output in the second quarter is likely to be even weaker, with an extra public holiday placing an additional drag on the economy.

Britain's Conservative-led coalition government had been counting on a private sector-led recovery to drive growth while it presses ahead with austerity measures aimed at eliminating a budget deficit that is still around 8 percent of GDP.

But those hopes have been quashed by the worsening crisis in the euro zone - Britain's biggest trading partner - and signs of a slowdown in the United States and emerging economies.

Thursday's data showed exports fell at their fastest pace in almost a year, with net trade shaving 0.4 percentage points off output in the first three months of 2012.

Household spending has also been squeezed by high inflation and muted wage growth, a trend confirmed by Thursday's figures which showed households' disposable income fell by 0.9 percent. That left Britons with less spare cash to set aside, driving the household saving ratio to its lowest in a year at 6.4 percent.

"We think that the recession has probably continued into the second quarter," said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics. "There are still numerous factors likely to constrain the recovery going forward, not least tight credit conditions."

Banks have become increasingly reluctant to lend to businesses and households as they attempt to clean up their balance sheets and due to the high cost of raising capital.

Separately, BoE figures on Thursday showed British banks expect to significantly raise borrowing costs for customers over the next three months, as the cost of their own funding rises.

Britain's current account deficit also made gloomy reading, widening more than expected to 11.179 billion pounds from a shortfall of 7.228 billion pounds, equivalent to 2.9 percent of GDP.

Economists had expected the current account gap to widen to 9.0 billion pounds.

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