Lamar Alexander explains why the federal takeover not only of health care but of the federal student loan program is the “most underreported big-Washington takeover in history”. Why has the cost of higher education risen faster than income? Because thanks to the federal government we keep providing more and more money for it. Especially odious is forgiving student loans for those who go into “public service”. In other words working for the government. If you create jobs and wealth goods and services too bad. If you tax and regulate people who create jobs and wealth goods and services that is a wonderful thing.
[National Review Online does not make it easy to peruse the archives. I could only find one out of four articles from yesterday evening.]
Richard Vedder challenges President Obama’s claims that revamping the student loan program will make college more affordable. He also wonders just what good it does to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. We will be over-educated and over-indebted. Ah but it supports a system that to a large extent fosters leftist statism in its charges yes?
Neal McCluskey argues that this is not really a federal takeover of the student loan program. That ship sailed a long time ago. I recall Charles Krauthammer saying something similar several months ago. But McCluskey also notes getting one thing right does not fix all the wrongs that still exist.
Daniel Foster exposes “the Left’s most brilliant rhetorical feat — magically transforming failed corporate-statist half-measures they once championed into examples of the sorry state of the status quo and arguments for yet more statism”. It is a vicious cycle. Statist solutions make real problems worse. So then we need more statism.
Jonah Goldberg (quickly becoming another of my favorite commentators) decisively rebuts efforts by the left to compare true liberal opposition to Obamism with Kristallnacht.
Let me wrap up by saying what President Obama is attempting to do with higher education is at least as problematic as what Congress has done with health care. Some true liberal aka “conservative” commentators argued that the push for health care reform exhausted the president and congressional leadership. That they would take a long breather before attempting any more major initiatives. Boy were we wrong. Higher education. Financial system. Labor relations. Immigration reform. It seems we are just getting started. Remake America. Neutralize the opposition. Import new voters who will support the leftist statist ideology.
