You'd need only one guess to figure out which congressman criticized President Obama for using college students as "political pawns" hours before going into Congress to use college students as political pawns.
Explaining his vote on Friday's extension of student loan interest rate cuts, Congressman Allen West spoke out against the bill, criticizing the president's socialism on the issue even though Obama threatened to veto the damned thing.
Oh, and the bill, which America's favorite commie hunter called a "horrific abuse of our college students"? He voted for it, placing a wax seal on one of the most remarkable examples of illogical political double-speak to come out of the West camp since he rode his dragon of patriotism into Washington, D.C., a year and a half ago.
"Why are we having this vote?" West wrote on Facebook. "It is because slow jam President, Barack Obama, in true socialist fashion, nationalized college student loans as part of his healthcare law with interests rates at 6.8 percent. I would rather be voting today to repeal this horrific abuse of our college students in the healthcare law, but I will support freezing the 3.4 percent rate for a year."
Whoa, whoa, whoa -- so nationalizing student loans is "horrific abuse," but he supports low rates for all those rotten socialists using them? Sounds like somebody is fishing for the young-people vote with some commie bait.
West could have said, "I don't think the government should provide subsidized loans to help students go to college, but since the program is there I think the rates should be low." But he didn't -- it's only a "critical time for ideological debate" when it doesn't involve him saying something about letting the "free market" screw the nation's millions of college students.
There's just no way to use student loans against Obama. There isn't, at least, unless you're Allen West:
"My final question is, will college students continue to be used as political pawns or will they wake up?" West continued.
Well, the last time anybody woke up the college students, they all voted for Obama, so that might not be the best idea. Also, what happens when they get woken up and find out one of the parties doesn't want to give them loans?
But let's move on to this "political pawn" business -- which party's actually using them?
West criticized the president for tying the loans to the health-care law, but when it came time to cut the rates this time around, that's exactly what the GOP did: The bill that Republicans shoved through the House lowered the rate on subsidized Stafford loans for students, but they couldn't just give that to the political pawns college students -- also included in the bill were big cuts to (surprise!) health care.
(Full disclosure: I'm still paying off subsidized Stafford loans.)
So the government giving loans to students is socialist, but West votes to keep their rates down, and using students as political pawns in the health-care debate is wrong, but West votes for bills that do exactly that. It sounds complicated, but only because it's so contradictory.
And there were certainly alternatives -- the Senate, which is predicted to completely ignore the bill that the House passed, has its own version. The difference is that the House paid for the loan program by cutting out chunks of the health-care bill, and the Senate paid for it by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, which West haaates doing. Something about "job creators" or whatever. When it comes to higher taxes for poor people, though, he's all for it.
