ms. warren: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: mr. president, i rise this evening in support of keep student loans affordable, the bill that has been introduced by senators reed and hagan. you know, we have been talking a lot in the last few hours about student loans, about the cost of student loans, and we have talked particularly about subsidized loans. i just want to start this by pointing out, subsidized loans is not the right term. no one is subsidizing any of our students. the lowest cost loans that the u.s. government issues today produces a profit for the government. in other words, who is doing the subsidizing? our students are doing the subsidizing. they are the ones who are creating the profits for the united states government. now, let's talk about those profits. this year, those profits, as you rightly pointed out, those profits will be more than $50 billion. those are profits made on the students' loans that are already outstanding and the

ms. warren: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. rein reason madam president, i ask that the quorum call be lifted. officer without objection. ms. warren: it's been 18 days since the interest rate on new direct student loans doubled from 3.4% to nearly 7%. students will head to have college in just a few weeks and congress still has not found the way to keep their interest rates low. in massachusetts, our kids, our parents, our schools are worried. i just want to go over the history so that we're all clear about how we got here. you know, for months, democrats have argued that we need to keep interest rates low. we've made at least three attempts to do this. for example, i introduced a bill that would have dropped interest rates on direct loans for one year to the same level at which banks borrow from the federal government, which is currently less than 1%. i introduced that proposal because i believe that the federal government should invest in our students, not just in our biggest banks. now, we also proposed to extend the current

ms. warren: i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. warren: thank you, madam president. the interest rate on student loans doubled on july 1 because congress failed to act, our lowest income students are now paying twice as much on these new loans, and while students are paying more, the federal government is boosting its own profits. $51 billion in profits from the student loan programs in 2013 alone. this is just plain wrong. the government is making obscene profits on these loans, profits we can and should cut back on to help our kids who are strugging to -- struggling to pay for college, but republicans have repeatedly blocked our efforts to get a short-term fix that would save students from higher interest rates. this week, the senate will vote to fix this problem. the bill, the keeping student loans affordable act, was introduced by senators jack reed and kay hagan. it would drop the rate on direct student loans back down to 3.4% for one year, retroactively as of july 1, and give congress time to develop a plan to do the three thi

ms. warren: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senior senator from massachusetts is recognized. ms. warren: mr. president, i rise today in support of the senior senator from arizona and to support the 21st century glass-steagall act. i am honored to join senators mccain, cantwell and king in introducing this bill, and i particularly want to commend senator mccain for his hard work and his longtime dedication on this issue. senator mccain is a real leader here in the senate. while we don't agree on every issue, he's a fighter. he stands up for what he believes in. senator mccain worked hard to shed light on the too big to fail problem, and he's been thinking about how to bring back elements of glass-steagall for years. i'm proud to join with him today to speak about the 21st century glass-steagall act. i am glad to be his partner in this endeavor. washington is a partisan place, and this congress has its share of partisan bills. but we have all joined together today because we want a safe futur

ms. warren: thank you, mr. president.ise to speak about the consumer financial protection bureau and the renomination of rich cordray to serve as its director. years ago i began working on the idea for a consumer finance agency because our consumer credit system watts badly broken. the laws were inconsistent, they were often arbitrary. the basic rules changed for the same kind of product like a mortgage depending on what kind of company sold it. people got cheated. and as we know, in 2008 reckless and dangerous mortgage lenders and wall street traders who made money off those mortgages nearly brought our entire economy to its knees. in 2010 congress passed the dodd-frank wall street reform and consumer protection act. the consumer protection farm was the cfpb, designed as a watchdog to keep credit card issuers, mortgage lenders and student loan marketers from cheating people. there was a lot of negotiation over the structure of this new agency. hearing after hearing, markup after markup, floor vote after floor vote. but n

ms. warren about whether she thought the financial crisis or j.p.been avoided if glass stealing were in place. she told andrew the answer is probably no to both. >> exactly. >> that's by czar. some people like publicity, i think. >> i was wondering, i'm going to make it bipartisan, 37 times the house votes to repeal obamacare and they're probably going to do it again. >> people people you know this, people are still angry from 2008 because many people, the banks destroyed the economy. >> they feel stung. >> is that usually a good reason to do things? you heard him say -- >> i'm not defending her action of this bill. >> you are playing devil's advocate again. >> doing what her constituents voted her in wanted her to do. >> here's the misinformation. here's the misinformation. 20 financial institutions caused this crisis ten were snl now non-exist and under the occ. another ten were investment banks which were not regulated as they should have been by the sec. the only commercial bank was citicorps who morphed into an investment bank. commercial banks