Thursday, September 30, 2004

Thief in the Night: I know I've been blogging a lot on press releases lately, but this one from the Republican side of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce is a doozy.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES: Democrats to Introduce Bill Copying GOP Plan to Permanently End Excess Subsidies to Student Lenders; GAO Confirms Need to End Subsidies, as President Proposed Seven Months Ago

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. House Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) today called attention to a new report by the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) that confirms the need for legislation that would permanently eliminate the 9.5 percent floor interest subsidy ("special allowance") being paid to lenders on certain federal student loans. President Bush called on Congress to eliminate the policy more than seven months ago. Congressional Democrats have blocked a comprehensive bill offered by Republicans (H.R. 4283) that would permanently implement the President's request, but today indicated they will introduce a bill copying the GOP proposal.

"This is the mother of all Democratic flip-flops," Boehner said. "Seven months ago, President Bush called on Congress to eliminate this policy permanently, and Republicans promptly introduced legislation to do it.

"First Democrats tried to kill our proposal. Now they've decided to clone it," Boehner said. "With all due respect to my Democratic friends, I've got to ask: where have you been all year?"

...

That's a common complaint I hear in politics, that one party is "copying" or "stealing" an idea from another party. For some reason, if a Republican comes up with an idea, a Democrat isn't allowed to like it without being accused of cloning. Bill Clinton was often accused of this, and I've heard Democrats making that accusation as well.

For all the fighting and partisan bickering in politics, I can't fathom why one party would accuse another of "stealing" an idea. It seems to me that the two parties are finally "agreeing", and that should be considered a good thing.