Partisan politics and election-year posturing have turned a relatively minor problem into an election-year battle.

It’s a battle that didn’t need to be fought — and it confirms the impression that Washington can’t do anything anymore.

In this case, the fight is over preventing the interest rates on subsidized loans to college students from increasing in July.

Last week, President Barack Obama made campaign-style speeches about the looming interest rate hike for certain Stafford loans at three large universities in swing states.

House Republicans explained that they had a plan to keep the rates low, and said Obama was playing politics with the issue.

While that appears to be true, the interest rate issue could work for Obama as he tries to generate excitement among young voters for his re-election bid in November. The youth vote was a major factor in Obama’s 2008 election and he faces a challenge in trying to match the enthusiasm created by the “hope and change” message.

Obama did get the attention of undergraduates last week by telling them that Republicans in Congress want them to pay an extra $1,000 in interest payments for their college loans. If the interest rate on the subsidized Stafford loans jumps to 6.8 percent from the current 3.4 percent, it’s expected the average student borrower would pay about $1,000 more in interest.

Republicans say that they never intended for the rates to increase; it’s just that they disagree with Democrats over how to pay for the low-rate extension. The House bill would pay for the rate extension with funds from a program focused on women’s health created by the 2010 health care reform law.

Democrats blasted the House Republicans’ plan, and Obama threatened a veto. But the GOP pointed out that Democrats had earlier approved taking money from the same program to prevent fees for doctors’ Medicare payments from dropping.

House Speaker John Boehner claims that Democrats and Obama are manufacturing fights for political purposes. He’s right. But Republicans do it too.

A few weeks ago, House Republicans passed a bill providing a one-year, 20 percent tax cut to small businesses that they knew Senate Democrats would reject. But passing the House bill allowed the GOP to get Democrats on record rejecting a tax cut for small businesses.

A few days later, Senate Democrats began pushing a version of the “Buffett Rule,” calling for a minimum 30 percent tax rate on people making more than $2 million a year. Expecting Republicans to block the bill before it could be voted on, Democrats saw the political value in getting the GOP on record as being against higher taxes on the very wealthy.

It’s just a game in Washington. Nobody — not Obama, not Republicans, not congressional Democrats — is talking about realistic ways to tackle the national debt, crumbling infrastructure, threats to Medicare and Social Security or ways to promote long-term growth in the United States. Most elected officials in Washington care more about the next election than dealing with serious problems in serious ways.

It’s discouraging to see every issue break into tired and predictable political camps. The feud over the Stafford interest rates is just the latest example of how Washington has become dysfunctional.

A headline in the New York Times last week said, “Student loan debate becomes election-year fight.”

Nobody should be surprised to read the following headlines:

• Transportation funding becomes election-year fight.

• Tax reform becomes election-year fight.

• Debt ceiling becomes election-year fight, again.

• Pentagon funding becomes election-year fight.

The college loan interest rate problem could be fixed if Washington cared more about solving problems and less about the next election.