Joshua Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group, said the FFEL debate mirrors that over Medicare Advantage, the program under which private companies cater to Medicare patients. Each program represents “a system that everyone knows is inefficient,” Gordon said, but reforms have gone nowhere in Congress, largely due to the local interests of some members.

The reluctance of Congress to make difficult budget decisions, Gordon added, only bolsters the argument for an independent deficit commission “empowered to think of the country on the whole and not just individual districts.”

Then again, in bipartisan fashion, the Senate shot down such a proposal last month.

“There is one thing that often unifies Congress,” Gordon said, “and that is irresponsibility.”