Today I thought I’d look more closely at what the perspective presidential candidates have to say about the current legislation winding through Congress. I thought I would, but then I realized the results coming up in Google were from the 2004 presidential campaign. That’s right – I couldn’t just go by the headline because they are recycling the same diatribe for the 2008 campaign season. In 2004, politicians were going to take education seriously. They finally realized there was a problem. Apparently, many of them forgot there was a problem until campaign season opened and it was time to take pot shots at the system.

Maybe they didn’t forget. Maybe it just took them that long to work down their to do list to get to “Criticize Subsidizing Student Loans”. Ok, Mr. Edwards, you can safely check that box off and move on to “Get Nails Done”. Maybe they should prioritize their lists in the future. That’s assuming they haven’t already prioritized them based on what will get them elected.

I really do want to see improvements to the existing financial aid programs, but I want to see responsible changes that will benefit students and parents. Making assumptions and then making plans based on those assumptions isn’t helping. Throwing money at the issues will not help. Promising money from one program to feed another will not help. Threatening to cut subsidies is also not going to help. Pretending it’s 2004 is certainly not going to help.

What I’d like to do is find the number crunchers who did the creative accounting for the Senators and have them give me an amount for all the extra bureaucracy, redundant legislation, and press releases they heaped on us. It might just be enough to cut all that out and earmark the savings for higher education subsidies.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.