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The Senate held two votes yesterday on measures to ensure that student loan rates do not double in July—and the issue remained exactly where it began: stuck, The Washington Post reported yesterday. The measures each failed to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to move forward, as the parties remain at loggerheads over how to pay for the $6 billion loan subsidy. If unresolved, loan rates will rise from 3.4 to 6.8 percent on July 1. Leaders in both parties have said they want to freeze rates for another year. Democrats have proposed paying for the additional year of loan subsidies by ending a tax provision that allows executives of some small businesses to collect some of their income as business profits instead of wages. On a 51-43 vote, the measure failed to advance. The Republican proposal would have paid for the loan-rate freeze by eliminating the preventative health care fund created in the 2010 health care act. The White House has said Obama would veto that bill, but it failed to move ahead in the Senate on a 34-62 vote.