The Washington Post again tries to tell readers that politicians act based on their political philosophy. An article reporting on the private government subsidized student loan industry asserts that, "the student lending industry became a tempting target for cutbacks for philosophical and political reasons. Democrats tend to prefer government solutions -- and eschew for-profit answers -- to societal concerns." Well, we could believe that our philosopher legislators decided that they wanted to cut back the government subsidies to the private loan industry out of concern for the general good, or we could alternatively believe that the Democrats saw an opportunity to make a political pitch to students at the expense of government subsidies to an industry that overwhelmingly favored Republicans in its campaign contributions, a point also made in the article. On a day in which the front page article touts the record breaking first quarter fundraising feats of Senator Hillary Clinton, I would be more inclined to believe the latter. As a practical matter, it is hard to explain giving extra money to private firms for services that the government could provide at a lower cost, as anything other than a "government solution." Except, it is a government solution that happens to put large amounts of money in the pockets of private firms. (This is a government solution to the problem of corporations that need large profits and CEOs that need big paychecks.) This is the exact same story as what we saw with the decision to require that the Medicare drug benefit be available exclusively through private insurers when the traditional Medicare program could have provided the benefit at a lower cost. The media should just tell us what they know -- who gets money from whom, and what the politicans say. Maybe their personal political philosophy plays a role in their decisions, but the reporters don't know that, so they should not make assertions to this effect to readers.
--Dean Baker
