Sunday, January 29, 2006
Boehner's Role in the "Dumbing Down of America"
Rep. John A. Boehner has been playing a role in the institutionalizing of the Republican program of the "dumbing down of America."
Keeping the citizens stupid has proved to be a decisive factor in the popularity of many recent Republican projects such as: the Iraq war, the "war on terror", the extra-legal NSA warrantless eavesdropping, etc.
Two controversial industries -- for-profit colleges and trade schools, and private student lenders -- have been the major sources of financing for Rep. John A. Boehner's bid to become House majority leader. Boehner has been an outspoken advocate for each interest, and has used his chairmanship to push legislation that would boost profits by millions of dollars...
Boehner's ties to the two industries long had gone largely unnoticed, with coverage mostly limited to the Chronicle of Higher Education and some other education publications. Now that he is running for majority leader, his adversaries are seeking to discredit his bid and portray him as closely linked to Washington's special interest community."Any attempt to correlate political contributions to policy is just patently false," countered Kevin Smith, spokesman for the Education and the Workforce Committee, which Boehner chairs.
Boehner has played his part in the policy of placing recent college graduates into such debt that they are forced to work for years to get out of the financial ball and chain.
Boehner has sponsored legislation strongly supported by private student lenders to restrict the ability of the U.S. Department of Education to make government student loans less expensive by cutting fees. Student loans constitute a multibillion-dollar market in which the nonprofit government and for-profit private lenders compete.
During the current congressional session, Boehner's committee endorsed his legislation to allow the for-profit colleges and trade schools to gain millions of dollars in federal subsidies.
The measure would eliminate 1992 regulations designed to prevent the for-profits from signing up unqualified students and collecting student loans for tuition. Boehner would bar traditional colleges from denying credits earned at for-profits on the grounds that the for-profits are not accredited.
The Boehner proposals to deregulate the for-profit schools was strongly opposed by a coalition including the United States Student Association, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the American Federation of Teachers. They cited a series of recent controversies and investigations involving the for-profit colleges.
This is yet another example of the haves (in this case, the Republicans) taking advantage of the have-nots (students who require financial assistance.)
Way to go.
