Remember the Student-Loan Reform Bill?

Well, here's the latest: It's bizarre, but then why wouldn't it be?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/student-loan-overhaul-tak_n_496899.html

Dan Froomkin froomkin@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting Become a Fan Get Email Alerts from this Reporter Student Loan Overhaul Taking Filibuster-Proof Route To Overcome Corporate Opposition

Senate reconciliation rules to the rescue, hopefully, of the defenseless program of subsidizing banks to loaning money to students,who pay back the banks with interest, or, if they default, the federal government insures the loan and the interest. It's a $80 billion a year subsidy, and why should banks be beneficiaries for serving as middlemen for whom all risk is socialized and profit is privatized? This is not capitalism as it supposed to work, where the crony contributors to congressional campaigns are paid handsomely for their "investments." It's not really democracy either. Nor does it get the media coverage that it does deserves, because bankers' motives and their means for exercising influence to exploit the indefensible debt burden assumed by today's generation of college students whose families or scholarships or personal work earnings cannot meet the exploding costs of attending college. It's perverse public policy, it's immoral, and it's one more case of American exceptionalism run amok. And one more reason why young people ignore the antics of American politics at their own peril. The same mess described by Friedman in Hot, Flat, and Crowded -- namely, a political process that is charitably described as brain-dead -- is allowed to pesist because the illusion is created that nothing can be done to change the indefensible realities. There is much that can be done because there is no way the status quo can win on the merits when the policy pro's and con's are debated--unless the victims are so misinformed -- inadvertently or by self-insulation -- or out of the loop that they allow themselves to be victimized out of powerlessness.