Health Care and Higher Education
With history recently made with the monumental health care bill, emotions have been so high. It all begins with the emotions in the congressional office. Receiving calls all day urging the representative to either vote for or against the bill was intense. The people that made the effort to call were very strong in their feelings and reasoning as to why their representative should vote for or against the health care bill. The whole week leading up to the vote, we got an increased amount of calls, so working in the office, we had to pick our pace in order to receive the calls and take down the constituents concerns. In the end, when a few interns and myself were able to be in the gallery to hear the debates and watch the final vote happen, we knew all of our hard work in the office paid off. It was such a victory to watch the vote count hit the magic number of 216. Never did I think that I would get to watch such a monumental vote happen right in front of my eyes. It was very interesting to see how the representatives acted on the floor before and after the vote. The excitement could clearly be seen on the democratic side of the floor as they were victorious and chanted “yes we can”. Now that it is all done and over with, it has been great receiving the thank you calls.
Attached to the health care bill was the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. “The legislation would eliminate subsidies to banks in the federal student loan programs, and instead originate all federal student loans directly through the government”. Seeing my boss, Congressman Ruben Hinojosa, present at the “fixes” signing bill and then having him be mentioned by President Obama was a big accomplishment. With Congressman Hinojosa acting as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness, it was a huge success for him, his office, and the committees. “This sets a landmark in higher education as the single largest investment in education since the G.I. Bill of WWII”. The fact that this bill is so large, it makes room for all types of controversy. It is only natural that the country would be concerned about such a huge piece of legislation. In the end, there are so many people that will benefit from not only the health care legislation but also the huge investment of education. This has been such an amazing week as the other interns and I have been meeting powerful people here on The Hill. This week has been the absolute best week since first coming here to D.C. Although, the end of the program is a month away, there is still so much to experience and everything we have already experienced only makes this internship so amazing! -Quotes come from http://hinojosa.house.gov/2010/03/congressman-rubn-hinojosa-joins-president-obama-for-signing-of-historic-student-loan-and-health-care.shtml
