e average credit score for new car loans fell 10 points in the first quarter to 766, the same level as the fourth quarter of 2008, according to Experian. Lenders are extending credit to more subprime borrowers, which is pulling the average credit score down. Subprime borrowers made up 41.9 percent of borrowers for loans on new and used cars in the quarter, up from 40.7 percent a year earlier. Subprime borrowers have scores below 680. Thirty-day delinquency rates fell to 2.52 percent, the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2008. "As the automotive credit market continues to stabilize, lenders are showing a higher tolerance for risk," Zabritski said. The amount of loans 30 or 60 days delinquent fell $3.3 billion from a year ago to $16 billion. Lenders in the quarter gave borrowt from Democrats, who charge it would "end Medicare as we know it." The Senate rejected it in a vote last week, but also unanimously struck down an alternative plan proposed by President Obama.  Democrats said they wanted to leave it off the table while Vice President Biden leads a bipartisan group of senators to come up with a new budget that would include cuts in spending that would satisfy lawmakers who don't want to increase the nation's borrowing limit without reducing government's size. "The one thing we can't do is nothing," McConnell said. "The president, to his credit, is at the table. ... We're going to negotiate the contours of the plan in these negotiations. I'm personally very comfortable with the way Paul Ryan would structure it in the out years, but we have a Democratic president. We're going to have to negotiate with him on the terms of changing Medicare so we can save Medicare." Appearing on the same program, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Republicans to abandon the House Medicare plan, noting an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that says it would require seniors to shoulder an increasingly large share of their health care costs. Schumer said there are only three options -- doing nothing, the Ryan plan or a Democratic vision that preserves benefits and changes "delivery systems," but does "not let providers