Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R) of Maryland was asked this week whether he supports public investments in student loans. His response didn't go well.
For those who can't watch clips online, Bartlett began with a meandering answer, before eventually arguing that he believes it's unconstitutional for Congress to help students afford college tuition. In fact, the very idea reminded him of Nazis. Seriously.
"Not that it's not a good idea to give students loans, it certainly is a good idea to give them loans," the congressman said. "But if you can ignore the Constitution to do something good today, tomorrow you will be ignoring the Constitution to do something bad. You could. There are more people in our, in America today of German ancestry than any other [inaudible]. The Holocaust that occurred in Germany -- how in the heck could that happen? And when you start down the wrong road, it can be a very slippery slope."
Yesterday, Bartlett conceded his comparison was "ill-advised and inappropriate," adding, " I should never use something as horrific as the Holocaust to make a political point, and I deeply apologize to anyone I may have offended."
As for why the 10-term congressman thought of the Holocaust while talking about student loans, well, your guess is as good as mine. What's more, it's worth realizing that a congressman who believes student loans are an outrageous abuse of the Constitution almost certainly has to believe most of the advances of the 20th century were illegal.
But in the larger context, let's not forget that while student loans used to be entirely uncontroversial, as the Republican Party becomes more radicalized, GOP opposition to student loans is growing more intense -- in some cases to the point of self-parody.
Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri, for example, recently called the federal student-loan program a "stage-three cancer of socialism."
The rhetoric used by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is far less inflammatory, put their policy agenda is unambiguous: slash Pell Grants, cut college tax credits, and reintroduce the loan-system middleman so that banks are rewarded instead of students. What about young people who can't afford tuition at the college of their choice? According to the GOP ticket, they should either choose wealthy parents or "shop around" for some other school that charges less, because a Romney/Ryan administration doesn't intend to help.
In his convention speech last night, President Obama said, "I don't believe that firing teachers or kicking students off financial aid will grow the economy, or help us compete with the scientists and engineers coming out of China.... I refuse to ask students to pay more for college."
It's striking to realize that such a sentiment doesn't enjoy bipartisan support. It's even more incredible that for some Republican members of Congress, the basic policy idea reminds them of cancer, socialism, and Nazis.
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so according to this obviously demented old man, the President is only the commander of the Army and the Navy but not of the Air Force?
Art 2, Sec 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States..."
it takes so little to prove these @!$%#s are full of @!$%# that it takes all the fun away.
Just checked
June 3, 1926 (age 86) Just sayin
I read his bio and he is an educated man with numerous degrees .
Something is driving the lunacy
Roscoe hasn't been hitting on all cylinders for quite some time. His degrees are in science, but in person he always managed to come across as a fairly dim bulb. For example, he's one of the members of Congress who participated in the quasi-coronation of the late and unlamented Sun Myung Moon in some dark chamber of one of the Congressional buildings. I hope the great people of his district (I used to live there) get better representation this fall.
Well now he does seem to make the point that our right wingers try to use regularly--having an education is not all its cracked up to be if'n you ain't got a lick of sense to go with it.
OK we'll get a few veterans to tell us what the GI bill did for them . What they did before the war and then what careers they pursued after.
Shorter version:
If they're educated they won't work for slave wages in our factories , and they'll be smart enough not to vote Republican
I'm a 21 year navy veteran and the GI bill paid for my four year college education and being that I am an educated man I would never vote for a Republican. It is the party of ignorance and greed. I also have three children one has a degree in business and had to go to Korea to teach English so he could pay off his student loans because when he graduated in 2010 there were no jobs available. My youngest joined the air force so she could get the GI Bill and not have to use student loans. My other daughter is a stay at home mom. All three have benefited from the Obama Administration and all three would be hurt if Romney were elected.
But honestly though, we have to refine our answer. The president made two assertions:
Number 2 is undeniably true, however, the president also accepts the proposition that businesses should be free to deliver the lowest cost goods by cutting their production costs the way they see fit. Now, consider this. If those are the rules of the game, why would any business manager in their right mind hire an engineer in Country A, if you could pay a engineer with comparable education in Country B one tenth to 1/30th to do the same work?
So if this flattery of the US worker has some truth in it then what is our labor's comparative advantage in "hard work" and "smarts"? Are we we saying the US worker is twice as hard working, twice as smart, and twice as imaginative than the Chinese worker? While that idea may be culturally and racially suspicious, let's assume it is true.
It doesn't matter, because it's not enough. The US business manager still hires the Chinese engineer because their compensation package is one tenth that of the US engineer. We can do all the educating in the world and we will have done little more than spitting into the harsh headwind that is blowing down the salaries of the US middle class.
That's why the President's statements about education while true is a bromide. He has not gotten at the heart of the problem.
You are forgetting the elimination of tax breaks that help to make outsourcing more rewarding for the bosses. Get rid of those, and it's not really cheaper to hire the person in country B.
Right now, we have a system that rewards companies for shipping jobs overseas. That needs to go as well, and the current admin. supports that. The repubs want more of these kind of breaks.
The inaudible piece is "including English".
Its something in the water, or something. I mean really, did all these GOPers belive this stuff in the 70's, 80's and 90's? and were just hiding it really well? or have they all been brainwashed by someone or something. $$ perhaps, Power?
DO they honestly think that if they take power, and do all the things they are promising (and hiding) and the people lose their voting rights, privacy, healthcare, pensions, social Security and Medicare...that the people wont eventually rise up and show up at the Koch's houses with torches and pitchforks?
It's the Republican Kool-Aid. The Republican Kook-Aid provides for more vivid hallucinations than LSD. It provides for better 'color experience' than Mescaline, even if only in white. The Republican Kool-Aid is more addictive than heroin or crack cocaine. While LSD and Mescaline wear off, the Republican Kool-Aid never wears off.
Education for a strong country is comparable to military equipment for a strong army. The GOP fear an educated populace since hypocrisy and bullsh&& are harder to peddle to an educated person. Cost is a red herring. If somehow creationism and fundamentalism needed funding, the right would fund it.
And unfortunately it seems to be working. There is a segment of the population who believes anything and everything they hear on Fox News and/or right-wing radio. Logic and common sense are optional. Anyone else who tries to tell them something different (i.e., the truth) is dismissed as the "liberal media."
As ignorant as you think they are, you haven't got a clue. their "bottom" is bottomless. How they qualify as human in terms of IQ is beyond me.
I stopped viewing Republicans as being fundamentally human quite a ways back.
That is my Congressman!
I look forward to him losing this fall.
You made me wonder how many do not know who their congress person is?
Here is the truth; There are two types of Republicans who oppose this President, first are those who are against the president and are completely in the dark. They have no desire to become enlightened. They would support Daffy Duck as a presidential nominee if he was the Republican running against this president. They watch Fox news and nothing else and it would take a life changing experience or a sledge hammer to change their minds. Then there are the ones who know what they are doing and all they want is a puppet in the white house who can be manipulated and bought just like the last Republican President. Mitt Romney is just what they are looking for. The problem is there is going to be a debate and those who are undecided will get to see the President wipe the floor with a Mitt, and the vice President send Ryan-a-cryin!
Ignorance and Greed are the only opposing forces in this reelection and if the greed had it's way and got Romney elected it would only produce more ignorance. The only way to stamp out this republican kudzu is to reelect President Obama so we can educate more young people which is the only poison that works against ignorance.
"Republican kudzu" . . . that is greatness.
Yup..the kudzu analogy is truly inspired. The similarities are remarkable and on so many levels.
Most student loans are paid back in full and the country gets a huge return in the form of taxes paid on the income of the graduate. Without student loans, I could not have gone to college-- my parents had 5 kids and lower middle class income! I paid my monthly student loan for years, and for more than 30 years, I have paid (higher % of my income than Romney) taxes. Both of my daughters had to have student loans and they are paying them back while they pay taxes on good incomes.
Student loans are an investment in the future success of the country.
Well said ( or posted ) I support this post.
They are against LOANS, which presumable students plan on paying back. I can understand why the GOP would be against grants, since they don't want to support what they think of as freeloaders. But why loans? Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. This law protects the many banks that are friends of the GOP from risk. Since there is a much smaller amount of federal student loans available, many are forced into the private loan market where the interest rates are much higher than they should be compared to other lending rates. College is rapidly becoming available only to the wealthy, like everything else in this country.
republicans are against public parks...
An educated population is bad for Pepsi, Monsanto, Exxon,,,,,
The only hope for the Republican party is for the next generations to be uneducated and completely lacking in critical thinking skills, and they know it. There is nothing about this party that looks to the public interest anymore.
I could spend the rest of my life trying to understand Bartlett's "reasoning". But even that won't be enough time.
"First they came for the students with loans..."
Whoops - I forgot we are in opposite land, where student loans CAUSE totalitarianism. 'Cause that's what Hitler initiated - A huge student loan program.
Those weren't concentration camps - They were colleges.
Know what else isn't mentioned in the Constitution? Roads, bridges, massive subsidies for big ag and big oil, etc etc...
So are we at risk of fascism/holocaust, because we have so many people of German ancestry? I'm half German, and his remark makes me want to... want to... (-must- -control- -genetic- -tendencies-)
Maybe he thinks it'd be a good idea to, ya know, get rid of all that German stock. Breed us out, with the aim of creating a great American - hm, what's the term? Ah yes - Master Race. That's just a ducky idea.
Why the focus on Americans of German descent? What's he trying to say?
So Bartlett is concerned that the large number of Americans of German ancestry makes us particularly liable to start down that slippery slope to another Holocaust if the federal government supports student loans? Wow. Does he lose the votes of his German-American constituents? (Which, by his admission, must be numerous?)
Whoa -- I should have hit Post Comment before wandering off to get lunch! Many great minds with but a single thought, here!
not to mention one of the greatest student loan (grant) programs in history--the g.i. bill. i once read an article that was published in the 60s about how many veterans who would have never otherwise darkened the door of a college were turned into doctors, lawyers, and engineers with its benefits. what is it about knowledge and education (other than what can be had in the two bit seminaries of fundamentalist ilk) that's scaring the hell out of the republicans? are they beginning to fear being dismissed as idiots by those whose minds have been opened?
i've often suspected that giving more people the financial means to advance their education would lead to mass genocide...and now here's the proof
thanks roscoe
I have a Republican friend (with 3 daughters, one college graduate w/ loans) that told me that access to student loans from the govt was driving the cost of education up. Access to capital for students is why the college costs were skyrocketing. She truly believed this. She said this to me after agreeing with me that access to education should be available for all Americans. This is yet another unspoken (because easily debunked) princinple of the GOP. Think "legitimate" rape. These people are selfish, thoughtless creatures who have no concerns for the country as a whole, just themselves and their own immediate families...and also the President is black.
An olde republican addage; Socialism leads to fascism leads to genocide... We are way behind the curve on the bombing Sweden agenda.
Another republican postulate; people who live in socialist countries are the unhappiest. Sweden rocks the happy meter.
Each time the Ultra-Right "tries" to make a point using the US Constitution, they justify their platform using some interpretation of the Constitution while, sometimes simultaneously, attempting to decry an opposing view with the "Letter of the Law". You can't have it both ways.
they are anti-education
damn, these poor people are terrified of an educated populace. Student loans are like the Holocaust? Really? They are *that* scared of people getting an education.
It's in the first sentence you chucklehead.