Don't Mess with Education!

Congress wants to save $18 billion in savings. Here's an idea: End that war and don't screw around with education funding. An education is valuable. A war with no exit strategy will get you nowhere at all.

House Republicans voted to cut student loan subsidies, child support enforcement and aid to firms hurt by unfair trade practices as various committees scrambled to piece together $50 billion in budget cuts.

More politically difficult votes — to cut Medicaid, food stamps and farm subsidies — are on tap Thursday as more panels weigh in on the bill. It was originally intended to cut $35 billion in spending over five years, but after pressure from conservatives, GOP leaders directed committees to cut another $15 billion to help pay the cost of hurricane recovery.[...]

The House Education and the Workforce panel, for example, was told to generate $18 billion in savings over five years. On Wednesday it approved squeezing lenders in the student loan program and raising premiums to employers for government insurance of their employees' and retirees' pension benefits.

It also imposes new fees on students who default on loans or consolidate them and higher fees on parents who borrow on behalf of their college-age children. California Rep. George Miller, the senior Democrat on the panel, called the package a "raid on student aid."

The Ways and Means Committee approved on a party-line vote a plan by its chairman, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., with so many difficult-to-swallow provisions that lawmakers and aides whispered about whether the intent was to make it hard for GOP leaders to win its passage in the full House.

It includes $3.8 billion in cuts to child support enforcement. Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., charged that Republicans were appealing to the "constituency of deadbeat dads."[...]

The House Resources Committee approved a controversial plan to raise $2.4 billion in lease revenues by permitting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Minority Democrats opposed virtually everything that was done, saying Wednesday's actions are part of a broader GOP budget blueprint that also calls for $106 billion in new tax cuts over the next five years.

"They are targeting programs for poor people to pay for tax cuts for rich people," said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. Once those tax cuts are passed, Obey added, deficits will be increasing again.

California: Please field a candidate against Bill Thomas.

In a related note, Congressman Ron Lewis (KY-2) is a co-sponsor for H.R. 609, the College Access and Opportunity Act of 2005. This bill will have a big effect on at least 5 million students, if not more.