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From today’s WSJ:

Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.

One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July. Congress has already passed laws in recent years discouraging private lenders from making loans without a federal guarantee. But most college financial-aid departments still want private companies to originate and service the guaranteed loans. That’s because the alternative—a public option run by the Department of Education—has been distinguished by its Soviet-style customer service.

Taxpayers have even more reason than academics to fear the impact, in part because the public may not learn the details before this plan becomes law. Democrats aim to bring their education revolution to the floor without a committee vote or even a hearing in the Senate.

Mr. Obama’s budget also calls for making Pell Grants a mandatory entitlement. At least now they are subject to annual appropriation and their growth can be slowed when tax revenues fall or other priorities rate higher. Mr. Obama would prefer spending that is quite literally out of control.

“Various changes that the President proposes to the Pell Grant program would add another $0.2 trillion to the deficit between 2011 and 2020,” CBO said Friday. That could turn out to be a very optimistic estimate if unemployment remains high and more people seize the educational opportunity to which they have just become entitled. Still another taxpayer trap will be sprung if the President’s proposal to forgive some debt incurred by “overburdened” borrowers is included in the bill.

Over time, Congress increasingly forbids private loan companies from making loans to students that do NOT have a federal guarantee (yeah, because guaranteeing other types of loans worked out real well). And then, under cover of darkness, “passes” a new Higher Education Act that says private loan companies cannot offer guaranteed loans. This is like public schools teaching their kids that they should only have sex using adequate protection such as condoms, and then imposing a policy suggesting that any student found in possession of a condom gets kicked out of school.

In fact, this is far worse. Congress does this under cover of darkness, and then plays budget tricks to make it appear that these things are fiscally appropriate. Let me ask one more time, do any of you so called “Progressives” have any understanding of what a tradeoff is? Do you really think we can have free higher education, free health care, subsidized energy, no carbon emissions, job security, retirement spending, food stamps, etc. all at the same time, with no adverse consequences? I tell you what, I’ll sign up for your top 2 favorite policy priorities on the condition that you rank all of them by both preference and expected net benefit, and on the condition that all of the policies that are not at the top of the list are dropped in their entirety. I suspect no one would sign up for that, or even a modified (i.e. more generous) version of that.

Who exactly is the wide-eyed ideologue?

9 Responses to “The Joke That is American Democracy – Episode 7266294”

  1. Mark Lipstein says:

    This is sad…do you know they are doing this with the health bill? the CBO estimates for the plan are so low because hundreds of billions in hidden spending is appropriated in other bills that are attached and will be passed very quietly

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