Maggie's Farm

If my children take out student loans for college and decide to work in the private sector, President Obama makes them (as Mark Steyn says) “schlubs.”  A schlub is a blockhead, in the Yiddish vernacular.

President Obama wants to nationalize the $1-trillion college loan market, companion to his other nationalization pursuits as in healthcare.  Now, he plans to go further.  At taxpayer expense, he wants to cap the percentage of income that former students pay on their loans and increase forgiveness of student loans by lower-paid former students after 20-years instead of 25-years. But, if the former student works in the public sector for 10-years, the balance of the loan would be waived.

1. Very nice for former students who take virtually useless majors.

2. Even nicer for those who take government jobs, where average wages and benefits are now higher than in the private sector.

3. And, even nicer for Democrats’ union allies who are Democrats’ main financial supporters.

4. Also very nice for the heavily liberal college faculties and administrators who can continue to charge high tuitions and delay inevitable modernized instruction and conferencing without the posh, big fixed cost campuses.

5. Not so nice for taxpayers, as with this latest proposal, politicians find ways to pay off their constituencies whenever they get ahold of another money stream or power. The takeover of the student loan market, says the Congressional Budget Office, might save up to $47-billion over 10-years, especially the CBO says if defaults don't increase. The latest proposed, in effect, give-away "defaults" via lowered repayments and waivers of repayment, not yet scored by the CBO, will eat up much of or more than that to buy off Democrat backers and buy votes. Take a look at this map of which states have the highest average student debt.  Overlay which states are “blue” and you can see which states’ residents stand to get the most bailouts from their student loans.

As the New York Times reports, “Most U.S. Union Members Are Working for the Government, New Data Shows.”

According to the labor bureau, 7.2 percent of private-sector workers were union members last year, down from 7.6 percent the previous year. That, labor historians said, was the lowest percentage of private-sector workers in unions since 1900.

Among government workers, union membership grew to 37.4 percent last year, from 36.8 percent in 2008.

And, government employment is the only major sector with job growth. “Notwithstanding the recession, government employment grew last year, inching up 16,000, to 22,516,000, according to the bureau.”

Rather than reflect on the growth of their union allies in government jobs, where most states and localities are cutting back basic services in order to pay their salaries and benefits, Obama’s Labor Secretary instead sees the answer in expanding the ease for unions to expand in the private sector via “card checks” that obviate the secret ballot and further increase their members in the public sector.

Meanwhile, those former students who take private sector jobs, who actually generate the taxes to support government workers, are second-class citizens, schlubs or blockheads, for not feeding at the federal teat and supplying the milk for those who do.

President Obama is trying to, once again, stir up resentment of “big business.” Obama does not mention that “big unions” and other Democrat-loving lobbies are larger spenders in political campaigns, largely unfettered now while corporations are under McCain-Feingold campaign finance restrictions.  Obama is trying to politick his way out of his many political defeats, protect his liberal base, and is doing so by pursuing his consistent opposition to free speech.  His transparency is evident, and boomeranging.

In the 2008 campaign, as Michael Barone wrote, “attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals.”  President Obama is consistent in continuing this shameful pursuit.

Once elected, President Obama issued an order barring officials from talking with lobbyists about the spending of “stimulus” funds.  The ACLU was critical:

The rule is intended to prevent stimulus funds from being “distributed on the basis of factors other than the merits of proposed projects or in response to improper influence or pressure,” according to the memo.

While applauding that goal, Michael Macleod-Ball, chief legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and himself a lobbyist, questioned the means, saying, “The question is whether this restriction, as it’s drafted, is the best way to achieve that end with the narrowest amount of limitation on an individual’s rights possible. “From our perspective, the pretty clear answer is ‘no, it’s not.’”

The “megascandal”  is not widely reported, however, that “stimulus” funds have been steered to Democrat congressional districts, and on no other basis such as socio-economic need.

President Obama appointed Cass Sunstein to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, with influence thoughout the Executive branch and regulatory agencies.  Sunstein favors “using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings,” to stifle criticisms of politicians.

The return of David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, to the Obama White House is telling of President Obama’s choice to pursue deceitful politicking instead of support free speech.

Not a new economic team. Not a new chief of staff. Not even a new national security staff to replace the gang that dropped the ball on the Christmas Day bomber. No, with the Obami, it is never about substance or getting the policy right. It’s not about governance. It is about the perpetual campaign. So the campaign manager gets the emergency call.

Plouffe is coupled with "campaign law expert and partisan warrior” Bob Bauer, who worked for Plouffe in the 2008 election, appointed in November as White House Legal Counsel.

Bauer is a supporter of campaign finance laws. He argued against the Citizens United challenge to them before the US Supreme Court.

The government contends the current campaign finance rules are constitutional. The Democratic National Committee is backing the government's position. In a brief co-filed by attorney Bob Bauer, who was later named White House counsel, the DNC argued that if the court swept away corporate spending restrictions, for-profit companies could overwhelm the power of individual small-dollar donors.

It also would leave political parties, which can't raise unlimited sums, at a disadvantage in responding to a barrage of corporate political ads attacking their candidates or supporting their opponents, and there "would be a heightened risk of corruption," the Democrats argue.

Plouffe is an architect of Obama’s misleading campaign verbiage.  Together, they are behind President Obama’s denunciation of last week’s US Supreme Court decision to overturn some of the excess restrictions on political spending in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign law and following Federal Election Commission regulations and rulings.

President Obama pronouncement:

"I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest," Obama said. "The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of the elections."

The Associated Press reported, “Yet the president is among those who see it as blowing open the doors to big-business influence over democracy. He predicted that anyone who runs for election and tries to take on powerful special interests will now be more likely to be "under assault come election time."

President Obama’s rhetoric ignores that currently his allies, like unions, are both favored by McCain-Feingold and the largest contributors to campaigns. Open Secrets lists the organizations that are Major Donors between 1989-2010.  Of the top 100, far more lean Democrat, including 8 of the top 10.  So far, in the 2010 election cycle, 60% of Political Action Committee contributions are to Democrats. In addition, Independent Expenditures between 1989-2010 on political campaigns by organizations, ostensibly uncoordinated with a political party, lists by far the largest coming from unions.

The sheer audacity of liberal groups is evident at the ACLU, which argued in support of the case brought in Citizens United but is now considering reversing itself. “ ‘The worst thing you could do – the absolutely worst thing you could do – is transform a civil liberties organization into a liberal political organization,’ Mr. Abrams, one of the most famous First Amendment lawyers in the country, told the board.” That hasn’t stopped the ACLU before.

The Supreme Court decision will not unleash major corporation contributions to political campaigns.  Most are pressed during the current economy.  Most want to avoid contentious public issues, so as not to harm their “brand.”  Most important, most large ones contribute to Democrats and Republicans, shifting their weight with which is in power.  Most, especially the large ones, are most interested in feeding at the public trough than in being partisan.  Unions, however, find their bread buttered only with Democrats.

Another missed outcome of the Supreme Court decision is that tax-favored Non-Profit corporations, most heavily Democrat and liberal, are enthusiastic at being able to spend on political campaigns. “The ruling could make it easier for advocacy groups to speak out, says Abby Levine, deputy director of advocacy programs at Alliance for Justice, an association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, and other advocacy groups.”

Critics of McCain-Feingold’s restrictions on free speech, however, weighed in with more reasoned Constitutional sense.  For example:

If you look at it from the overall view of the role of the First Amendment, this is a decision that gets back to basics and back to first principles.  The first principle of the First Amendment that nearly everyone agrees on is that its purpose is to protect political speech and enhance democracy, because the more speech you have, the better democracy you have.

It's a great decision to strike down a system of prior restraints.  The Court said that the combination of these incredibly complex rules and regulations about when you can speak about politics and when you can't and who can speak about politics and who can't, combined with the Federal Election Commission-a government agency that basically has to approve your political speech-together that operates as a de fact system of prior restraint. As we know, a system of prior restrains is the reason the Framers wrote the First Amendment.

I previously wrote about The McCain-Feingold Ghoul.

Even today's New York Times' analysis recognizes: "Legal scholars and social scientists say the evidence is meager, at best, that the post-Watergate campaign finance system has accomplished the broad goals its supporters asserted."  Now that it's proven by experience, that only leaves partisan BS for Obama et. al.