Christine O’Donnell’s Student-Loan Lies

Hanlon’s Razor:”Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.” applies to Ms. O’Donnell. The problem is people are listening (and believing) her.

Actually, in its earliest years the guaranteed student loan program was all private with colleges putting up the guarantee so that banks would lend to their students. This was limited to a few private colleges initially, but caught on quickly. Soon states became guarantors so that public college students could participate. This provided the model for the national program.

As I understand it, the student loan reform legislation ends the program that has required the federal government to pay banks and other private lenders to provide federally-backed loans to students, and to reimburse private lenders if students default on their loans. In other words, a lot of taxpayer money will be saved by ending subsidies to private lenders, and the savings will go toward increasing money available for Pell Grants. Perhaps O’Donnell and her ilk are merely uninformed, or perhaps so ideological in their opposition that they cannot admit that the federal government and a Democratic administration should get any credit. I would rather not think that such critics are disingenuous, but I suppose that is also a disheartening possibility.

Just the choice of the photo in this article shows a negative bias toward this candidate; regardless of the message by her or the author. Please focus respectfully on just the issues and have a nice photo of the candidate otherwise conservatives like myself have a hard time reading your views as a negative tone has already been established by the photo. Aloha!

ampreston: You’re right to fault Kevin Carey’s bias especially in his hit-piece intro (guess that’s supposed to nail down the claim of O’Donnell as liar–except the “ex-anti-masturbation activist” bit, which, admittedly, is crucial to the student loan issue). O’Donnell’s claims aside, there is legitimate opposition to the feds’ takeover of the student loan industry (not yet complete, but well on the way): lack of choice of lenders, poor servicing, yet more private jobs lost to the bureaucratic army at the public trough, and forecasts of increased default rates that call into question the administration’s estimates at supposed savings, among other reasons.

Funny, I recall that Ms. O’Donnell was sued by Farleigh Dickison U. for not paying her tuituion back in the mid-90′s. Wonder how that factors into her spurrious claims?Ms. O’Donnell has repeatedly just flat-out lied about her education background; she has been nearly caught in flat-out lies regarding her political campaign finances; and she has very questionable explanations for reconciling her past statements (“I was a witch” or “you should never masturbate” or “abortion is unacceptable even in cases of rape or incest”) with her current political platform.I highly encourage taking a gander at Ms. O’Donnell’s background — especially her ridiculous appearances on T.V. in the late 90′s as a self-professed Christian conservative. Funny, she sued one of her Christian conservative employers not too long ago for sexual discrimination and claimed that it came from, get this, their Christian conservative principles. Ms. O’Donnell reminds me of the the opportunists that climb over everyone on their way to the top — and there are lots of the in the Academy, as we all know. Nothing they say registers as a lie; it is all b.s., which as Frankfurt reminds us, is worse than lying, because they have no use or regard for the truth.

Um…it’s Heinlein’s law, I think, from the science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein.