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SHOT: White House Domestic Policy Council Chair Melody Barnes: “This is something that we've been focused on, the high cost of college.” (MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” 10/26/11)

 CHASER: Obama’s Plan “Only Reaches The Tip Of The Iceberg” While Ignoring The Increasing Costs Of Tuition And Jobs For Graduates.  “Consumer advocates who focus on student lending praised the effort as a first step but were plain that the initiative only reaches the tip of the iceberg. It chips away at student loan bills but does nothing to address soaring tuition costs, and the scores of recent graduates struggling to find jobs even with advanced degrees.” (Stacy Kaper, “Obama Student Loan Relief Is Modest But Could Prove Politically Smart,” National Journal, 10/26/11)

• The Cost Of College Is Currently At “An All Time High.” “Nationally, the cost of a full credit load has passed $8,000, an all-time high. Throw in room and board, and the average list price for a state school now runs more than $17,000 ... more
  
  

Last week the Department of Education announced the two winners of the first round of their Race To The Top grants, Delaware and Tennessee. The grants were supposed to be for funding far-reaching, innovative reforms, so these choices were somewhat surprising given the moderate quality of their proposals. Some Democrat governors are so furious at the arbitrary nature of the Obama Administration that they might not apply for the second round of grants.

Colorado, which had hoped to win $377 million, ended in 14th place. Now Mr. Ritter says the scoring by anonymous judges seemed inscrutable, some Coloradans view the contest as federal intrusion and the governor has not decided whether to reapply for the second round. “It was like the Olympic Games, and we were an American skater with a Soviet judge from the 1980s,” Mr. Ritter said.

Apparently the secret to the success of Delaware and Tennessee was the support of local teachers unions. According to the Washington Post, the level of ... more

Now that Obama has signed his bill to take-over the health care industry, the Senate is debating a secondary bill that further increases taxes, further cuts Medicare, and expands the government encroachment to take over the student loan industry. Democrats have not been shy about promoting ideas that expand the government’s control over the lives of every-day Americans, but they are rarely as blatant as Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) was in a recent interview on a Detroit radio station:

The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

“Put[ting] legislation together to control the people” is an excellent summary of the Democrat agenda. They’re restricting freedom across the board, and the only way to stop it is to fire Nancy Pelosi by defeating Democrats at the polls ... more

Four months ago, we warned you about Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, and his attempt at turning the Education Department into a favor factory. Well, there is now an investigation of Duncan during his time as the head of Chicago’s public school system, reports The New York Times:

When Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, his office kept a log of nearly 40 pages listing the local politicians and business people and others who sought help getting children into the city’s most selective public schools.

According to an article Tuesday in The Chicago Tribune, which first obtained and reported on the confidential log, those who sought such help included 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, the State House speaker, the state attorney general, the former White House social secretary and a former United States senator.

What does that Chicago Tribune article say about what Duncan possibly did for the politically ... more

When the Dems’ are looking to round up votes for their big government agenda items – their global warming tax and government-run health care bills – the leadership took wavering members behind closed doors and started cutting deals and twisting arms. But giving away millions of dollars in earmarks and sweetheart deals like the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase are nothing compared to the latest Democrat plan.

Dems now want Obama’s reconciliation bill for a government takeover of the health care industry to include a government takeover of the student loan industry. Neither job-killing takeover is backed by enough Dems to pass without circumventing the rules, so this plan to pass “2 Takeovers In 1 Bill” allows them to kill two birds with one stone.

The D.C. public school system is in dreadful shape, but one bright spot is the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Each year 1300 students are selected for scholarships to attend private schools. While larger reforms are needed, at least these few students are allowed to escape their failing schools.

But this year’s enrollees will be the last, because Obama’s 2011 budget eliminates funding for accepting any new students. A bipartisan group of senators are calling on Obama to save the program.

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) haven't given up on their bid to save the federally funded voucher program that allows low-income families in the District to send their children to private schools. We would like to see them succeed, but it's clear that President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have already written the epilogue to this worthy program. Their disregard for how vouchers have helped children is so complete that it seems that the best ... more

On Monday, Obama dragged the CEOs of major banks to the White House and chastised them for not lending more to small businesses, completely disregarding the fact that this would represent the same risky behavior Obama had previously criticized them for. 

Today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, arguing that banks should not be in the business of issuing student loans to college students, and that only the government should play that role.

See if you can follow the administration’s logic here: Banks SHOULD be lending money to unqualified small-businesses in a repeat of the same risky behavior that lead to the financial collapse; but banks SHOULD NOT be lending money to students. 

Putting aside the obvious hypocrisy in their messaging, what is truly frightening is the emerging trend that from health care to education, the Obama administration’s governing philosophy continues to be that government knows best.  The problem is that just as ... more