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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 patients would suffer under the public option, students will suffer under the educational public option as they are forced to deal with a government bureaucracy and limited choices.

This fall, the Democrats in Congress passed a bill that would accomplish the same government takeover of student lending that Duncan is championing.  At the time, we highlighted the many problems with the takeover including , increased costs for taxpayers, a possible delay in students receiving their loans, and of course bureaucrats standing between students and their education. So why would the President and administration be pushing more government intervention in education? Because just as in health care, the ultimate goal is a system that eliminates the need for private competition: a single payer.