This is one of those strange stories in which Democrats want to spend less money and make a federal system more efficient, and conservatives are livid. The situation is pretty straightforward. When Clinton was elected, the student-loan system was burdened by a layer of unnecessary bureaucracy. Higher-ed students would get a loan from a private lender, but it was effectively a no-risk system -- the federal government would guarantee the loan in the event of default. The industry was getting government subsidies to provide a service the government could perform for less. Clinton wanted to streamline the process and make it cost less -- the government would make the loan, cut out the middleman, and save billions.
Conservatives and loan industry lobbyists went nuts, forcing Clinton to backtrack. The eventual compromise led to two types of student loans -- direct loans and guaranteed loans. Colleges were allowed to choose the system they preferred. (They preferred the direct loans until lenders started bribing college-loan administrators.)
Sixteen years later, the Obama administration wants to save $4 billion a year, end subsidies to lenders, and make the process more efficient. The White House and Department of Education have apparently come to the conclusion that there's no point in laundering loans through lenders, who make a tidy profit, for no reason.
And once again, conservatives are livid. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.) railed against a "government takeover of the private-sector-based student loan program."Matthew Yglesias explains their stupidity
In terms of stating the bleeding obviousThe notion that cutting taxes somehow — magically — increases government revenues is a myth that won’t die. “The claim that tax cuts pay for themselves…is contradicted by the historical record,” reported the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which showed that revenues grew twice as fast in the 1990s, when taxes were raised, than in the 1980s, when taxes were cut. FactCheck.org called a claim like Hutchison’s “highly misleading” and stated the obvious fact that “we can’t have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers.”
You know, these tax cut arguments hold about the same water as an employer telling employees they'll make more money if their salary's cut. Which arguments hold about the same amount of water as a collander does. MORE
More Republican fuckwitterySo, to review, the Senate today approved an amendment to a bill about D.C. voting rights prohibiting the FCC from bringing back an old broadcast policy that the FCC wasn't considering and which the Obama administration does not support. Congress at its finest.
But since it passed overwhelmingly, at least we won't have to hear the right complain about this anymore, right? If only it were that simple. The measure would still have to be approved by the House, which isn't interested in holding a vote.
In response to the DeMint/Thune measure, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed "a rival amendment that he said essentially reaffirmed existing law, which calls for the FCC to encourage diverse media ownership." It passed 57 to 41. Despite the fact that Durbin's measure simply re-stated current law, every Republican in the Senate voted against it.
DeMint told reporters that Democratic efforts to legally encourage diverse media ownership open a "back door to censorship."
I have no idea what DeMint is talking about. Come to think of it, neither does he.
Remind me again why any sane person wants to be a part of this wretched set of humanity?
Americans have been long chastised for our environmental footprints (and for good reason). But the latest report from environmental groups including Greenpeace should give us major reason to pause. The Guardian could not have said it any better:The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.The numbers are shocking: More than 98 percent of the toilet paper we use in the US is from virgin forests, the Guardian reports. Across the world, people are struggling to save our forests from deforestation, and instead of helping out, we're wiping are butts with our best defense against climate change. And until the time comes when Obama gets Congress to pass a TP Act, Greenpeace has some help for consumers, with a handy guide for getting some good toilet paper that won't harm the environment.
The New York Times explained why it is we insist on only the finest trees:...Fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.The Guardian explains why this phenomena is not worldwide, but seems to be an American experience:
Dave Dixon, a [Kimberly-Clark] company spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fibre had been on the market for years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.
"For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides," Dixon said. "It's the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to expect."
....
Greenpeace, the international conservation organization, contends that Kimberly Clark, the maker of two popular brands, Cottonelle and Scott, has gotten as much as 22 percent of its pulp from producers who cut trees in Canadian boreal forests where some trees are 200 years old.MORE
Briefs on FISA are coming out in Northern California so fast and furious it's hard to keep them straight. Just as a reminder there are two main cases:
* al-Haramain, in which the Bush (and now Obama) Administration has invoked State Secrets to prevent lawyers for the defunct charity al-Haramain from using clear evidence that Bush wiretapped them illegally to prove that Bush wiretapped them illegally
* Retroactive immunity (Jewel/EFF), in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is challenging the retroactive immunity statute Congress passed last year on Constitutional grounds
The Obama stance on these two cases is worth looking at in conjunction because the Obama position toward congressionally-passed law is perfectly crafted to gut civil liberties (and Article III authority), all based on Obama's interpretation of "if."
Astoundingly, both al-Haramain and retroactive immunity are almost certainly headed for the Appeals Court to rule on the meaning of two "if's" (and one "shall") appearing in FISA-related law. MORE
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timeasmymeasure
