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Lunch » Tags » Politics » Reviews » Pell Grant Reform

Pell Grant Reform

4 Ratings: 1.0

Government Take Over of Student Loan Program

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Tags: Politics, Public Policy, Current Events, Health Care Law

1 review about Pell Grant Reform

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Why Is Education in the Health Reform Bill? PART TWO.

Mar 30, 2010

by coldsteel7
posted in Public Policy

Rating:

-3

Listening to President Obama speak today about the Education Reform within the Health Care (Law), I had an epiphany. I was erroneously viewing the addition of that Legislation as a vote purchase. I figured it was the pet project of some Senator or Congressman that was added in order to win enough votes to pass the legislation. Today, I have an entirely different perspective.

The Education Reform was a budgetary gimmick used to help make the legislation "deficit neutral." The sacred cow of this legilsation was the concept that it was deficit neutral. I list six points in another article on why the Health Reform Law is not Deficit Neutral. In that article, I list six points that I considered regarding the true cost of the legislation. Mark this down as point number seven.

It appears that the move to eliminate third-party vendors from the student loan process will save the government 68 Billion dollars. There it is plain and simple. How did I miss that the first time through? 68 Billion Dollars in savings? That was added to the Health Reform Bill as a budgetary device to help the scoring process from the CBO. This would have fallen under cost reductions as a 68 Billion dollar reduction even though it is completely unrelated to Health Care. This Administrations ability to play with smoke and mirrors never ceases to amaze me.

I guess my response to this revelation is two-fold. First...it strikes me as patently dishonest to add legislation for strictly budgetary purposes. It is patently dishonest and shows the distance this Administration is willing to go to dupe the public. Second, the Government is never a good steward of our money. If you look at any under-taking from the Post Office to Amtrak, you can see the propensity of the Government to do things more expensively than private industry. I doubt...in fact, I will aver...that the Government will never accomplish 68 Billion in savings from this maneuver. It was a tricky strategy, but I will bet that the savings are never realized. Things just never work that way when bureaucracy is involved.

Only time will tell. In the meantime, for those who are reading this that wanted this Bill and all the bad stuff that came with it...are you even just a little curious what other gems and tricks are hidden in this legislation? Are you even slightly perturbed at the cost or at being tricked? I hope so. I hope that any good Independent or Blue Dog will view this Legislation for what it is and work to reverse the negative aspects of it...if not the entire Bill.

Why Is Education in the Health Reform Bill? PART TWO.

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drifter51 March 30, 2010

You have an interesting theory there. I will be on the lookout to see if anyone picks up on that and confirms your suspicions. There was a column on the editorial page of The Providence Journal in which the writer applauded the government takeover of student loans because as (and I am paraphrasing here) "Big banks are happy to make billions off of student loans but are always looking for a bailout when they make bad investments". I agree with her argument on that point. Seems like many capitialists are only capitalists when they win but when they lose they want a handout. But turning the whole program over to the Feds? If anyone can make matters worse it is certainly the federal government.

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