GOP Hypocrisy on Student Loans

Isn't it interesting how all the Republican arguments about protecting the taxpayer fade away when it comes to delivering largess to corporations. It seems that giving subsidies is only irresponsible when it helps citizens. In this case the topic is student loans...

The hypocrisy of the Republican Party knows no bounds. Near daily, Republican leaders rail against a public option for health insurance, saying it represents an unfair intrusion into the private sector, and an unwise use of taxpayers' money.

Yet when it comes to eliminating corporate welfare paid for by taxpayers, they yell "foul." Subsidizing the private sector is acceptable, competing with it is not. Such is the case with the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which eliminates government payments to banks to encourage student loan lending. As it turns out, it would be a much smaller drain on the federal budget for the government to lend directly to students, rather than subsidizing banks to do the same lending. Less expensive to the tune of nearly $90 billion over the next 10 years, as forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

But 17 of the 19 Republican members of the House Education and Labor Committee opposed the bill because it replaces private capital in the student lending market. Here is a clear-cut case where Congress can advance an important social goal -- encouraging higher education -- and save taxpayers billions of dollars. It's a win-win by any measure. This one, simple reform could pay for almost one-tenth of President Obama's proposed health care reform.

It's time to call the Republican leadership to account. If they are so opposed to government spending, why are they in favor of giving nearly $90 billion of taxpayer money to the private sector without getting anything in return?

AIG: It's all about greed

The news this week of AIG's bonus payments is a disgrace—so I, like many others, need to sound off.  But not by losing sight of what really needs to be done.  So it's time to start writing again...

AIG wants the country to believe that it had to go forward with bonuses to employees of its failing financial products group based on two arguments. First, it couldn’t risk abrogating the contracts it had with employees, and second, it can’t risk losing these very same employees whose reckless actions led to the largest corporate loss in U.S. history.

It stretches the bounds of credulity to hear AIG talk about managing risk. This is the company that sold one half-trillion dollars of credit insurance without any thought to managing the underlying risk by maintaining adequate capital reserves, leading to a $200 billion taxpayer-funded bailout.

AIG should let more experienced risk managers determine whether abrogating employee contracts in an effort to recoup $165 million of taxpayer money is a risk worth taking. What’s entirely clear is that the issue is not really about risk, it’s about greed. How else can one explain why a company would pay millions of dollars in “retention” bonuses to employees who weren’t even retained? Or how its concerns about meeting contractual obligations didn’t also extend to the customers of the insurance it sold.

For all those free market absolutists who rail against government regulation (because it stifles economic activity), how to explain that it was AIG’s heavily regulated traditional insurance business that generated the capital and profits that were then squandered by the unregulated financial products groups?

There is a proper role for government to regulate a market that is subject to abuse, and when the abuses have externalities. When Congress is finished using the tax code as a means of punishment (a dangerous precedent), hopefully they’ll put their attention to more constructive ways of protecting our economy and taxpayers from the greed of “Wall Street”. Which unfortunately may include the need for further support of the financial institutions responsible for the current catastrophe. But while finding legitimate ways to punish those responsible, Congress shouldn’t let its populist fervor get in the way of doing what needs to be done to get our economy back on track.

A Quick Note to Joe Lieberman

While the Senate is still in the midst of debating how much unchecked power to grant the Bush administration as it continues to trample on our civil liberties, I shot off this note to CT Senator and ex-Democrat Joe Lieberman. I don't have much hope that he'll listen, but that's never stopped me from speaking out...

Dear Senator Lieberman:

As the Senate debates the reauthorization of President Bush's warantless eavesdropping program, I urge you to do everything you can to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens. The actions of the Bush administration have been anathema to those of us who believe the President does not have the right to trample on the Constitution in the name of national security. Frankly, I am extremely disappointed in your frequent support of Bush policies. In this case I hope you put the Constitution ahead of Bush's ill-conceived policies to protect the U.S. against the threat of Islamic extremism. And that should include voting against any immunity for telecommunications companies that forked over private records without warrants.

Mukasey: Another Attorney General Like Gonzales?

There is now well-documented evidence that the Bush administration is running roughshod over the rule of law, demonstrated by actions such as its warrantless wiretapping and repeated court rebuffs on military tribunals. It is also clear that President Bush has seriously damaged the United States’ moral authority through use of torture, withholding the right to challenge detention and extraordinary rendition.

I would have therefore expected that the Democratic-led Congress would demand that Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey unambiguously declare his opposition to these policies. But the apparent green light from the Senate Judiciary Committee to move forward on the nomination is not reassuring.

As it is clear from Mukasey’s testimony that he cannot be trusted to return integrity to the Department of Justice, he should not be confirmed.

Mukasey has been unable to decide if the practice of waterboarding is torture. Despite the fact that the State Department has criticized other countries for using it. Despite the fact that after World War II, the United States prosecuted Japanese soldiers for engaging in the practice against U.S. soldiers. Despite that fact that U.S. military officials have called it torture. Even administration apologist Senator John McCain has called it “very exquisite torture.” If Mukasey’s powers of inquiry are so feeble that he can’t collect the facts he needs to come to a decision, then surely he isn’t fit to lead the nation’s law enforcement activities.

Mukasey’s view of executive privilege has more far-reaching consequences for the principles which are the cornerstone of our country’s moral clarity—namely the rule of law. In his testimony, Mukasey stated that it is acceptable for the President to violate laws written by Congress, as long as his actions are within the Constitution. That is dangerous thinking for a country founded upon the separation of powers. It is precisely this arrogance on the part of the Bush administration—that believes it can ignore, rather than challenge, the legislative branch—that is seriously eroding the protection of our constitutional and civil rights.

Hopefully the Democratic controlled Congress will stand up to Bush’s attacks on our country’s principles—as the electorate signaled they wanted last November—by refusing to support the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General.

Liberty and justice for all; well, maybe not all.

I was in my daughters’ school the other day, and overheard the pledge of allegiance: “…with liberty and justice for all.” Unless, of course, you happen to be caught in the Bush administration’s war on terror dragnet. Then, in the name of protecting American values and liberty, you’re pretty much out of luck – it may even cost you your life.

You may be whisked away in secret to a foreign country like Syria to be tortured to give up information you don’t possess, as happened to Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian citizen who fell victim to the CIA practice of extraordinary rendition.

You may be locked up for a month without access to legal counsel through abuses of the material witness statue, as happened to Abdallah Higazy. He is an Egyptian citizen who was staying in a New York city hotel room on 9/11, in whose room the previous occupant left an aviation radio that was deemed suspicious.

Or you may be the taxi-driver Mr. Dilawar, who died in an Afghan prison after being assaulted and tortured – even though investigators had concluded that he was almost certainly innocent of involvement in the attack for which he was being held. Or perhaps you were, until recently, in a secret CIA prison, where the Bush administration wanted to engage in interrogation practices that would not be deemed acceptable by civilized countries around the world.

More likely, you’re one of those still languishing in Guantánamo in legal limbo, not charged with any crime, with no recourse to challenge their detention. Why? Because the right to file for a writ of habeas corpus no longer exists for those deemed to be illegal enemy combatants, thanks to the “new and improved” military tribunals conceived of by the Bush administration (after its first attempt was found to be unconstitutional). Has Bush so terrorized Americans that we don’t think twice about locking somebody up indefinitely, before their guilt has been established?

I don’t consider myself to be soft on terrorists, and I want the U.S. to be aggressive in hunting down and prosecuting them. But I also want our country to be able to look itself in the mirror, and be able to say we are doing so in a manner consistent with our principals. We are not infallible; we do make mistakes, we have already made some egregious ones. Not everybody that we think is a terrorist – even under reasonable assumptions – is. That is why our judicial system is built on a foundation of due process.

Beyond the liberties and lives of innocents that have been lost, the Bush administration policies have cost America’s reputation in the world dearly. As Colin Powell remarked recently, “the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” This, and Bush’s failed strategy in Iraq, have increased the threat from terrorism, as the recent National Intelligence Estimate made clear.

Throughout these past five troubling years, the Republican congress has done virtually nothing to hold Bush accountable for his misguided and incompetent strategies in the war on terror. That is why I’m voting for Ned Lamont for senator and Diane Farrell for representative in next week’s midterm election. It’s time to send legislators to Washington who will alter the disastrous course along which Bush is leading us.

Impeach Bush? Not yet.

On the one hand, I would welcome the opportunity see President Bush impeached. Through his willful manipulation of intelligence, condoning of torture and violation of constitutional protections of due process and privacy, he has done more to destroy the integrity of the United States than any president since President Nixon. President Clinton may have embarrassed the office, but he did not threaten our institutions.

However, impeachment is a misplaced fantasy at this time, just as is Senator Russell Feingold’s call for censure of President Bush. What Democrats, and Republicans, should be calling for is a vigorous examination of the facts – which the Republican leadership has been thwarting for months.

Congressional energy should be directed towards getting Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to fulfill his promise to investigate administration misuse of intelligence in the war on terror. Roberts has been stalling the conclusion of his investigation for months. He is a disgrace to the principle of an independent legislative branch of government.

Rather than doing deals to legitimize the NSA domestic spying program, the Republican leadership, and Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, should be demanding a full investigation of that program to determine whether Bush has violated constitutional protections, as the current evidence strongly suggests.

Only then can we know whether censure, or more, is the appropriate response.

How much more Bush can we take?

President Clinton was impeached for lying about highly inappropriate personal behavior which had nothing to do with how he governed or protected our nation. Fast forward to today, when nearly three-quarters of Americans believe President Bush was “hiding something” or “mostly lying” about the evidence for weapons of mass destruction, and half of Americans believe he “intentionally misled” us into the war in Iraq (The New York Times/CBS News Poll 12/8/05).

That alone should be enough for the Congress to start asking some tough questions about possible deception by the Bush Administration.

Yet this high level of mistrust was before it was disclosed that President Bush secretly authorized the N.S.A. to conduct wiretaps of communications with Americans without court order. There is widespread belief, across the political spectrum, that this program may be illegal. At the very least, Bush has continued to lie to the American people about his conduct of the war on terror. How else to explain a remark he made in Buffalo, NY in 2004 that “a wiretap requires a court order”? That was made more than two years after he authorized the N.S.A. activity.

If that doesn’t send a chill down your back, how about the repeated assertions by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that terrorism detainees are being treated “humanely” – despite case after case of abuse, torture and even death, many too gruesome to mention. The Bush administration claims that this is just the work of a few errant soldiers, yet the ACLU has obtained over 70,000 pages of government documents covering what surely is a much more pervasive problem, for which President Bush is holding no senior officials accountable. In one specific instance, the CIA inspector general found in 2004 that some aspects of his agency’s treatment of detainees might constitute cruel and inhuman treatment as defined by an international treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory.

While Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was busy last December trying to convince Europeans that “the United States does not condone torture,” the Administration was doing all it could to keep the Congress from passing an amendment prohibiting torture. What does that tell you about the President’s commitment to human rights and the truth?

On these critical issues of national security and fundamental American values, it is time for Congress to aggressively and tirelessly work to uncover the facts about whether President Bush has lied and broken the law in prosecuting the war on terror.

Indeed, Congress should go a step further and appoint an independent counsel to conduct this inquiry. It tolerated a 10-year, $20 million Independent Counsel investigation of a Clinton cabinet secretary, Henry Cisneros, for lying about payments to his mistress. Surely it can find the wherewithal to investigate an Administration that is quite clearly taking enormous liberties with the truth, and perhaps more.