Daily Skiff

It's amazing how history repeats itself, even when the history only happened last year.

President Barack Obama, in his infinite wisdom, made a budget in which we would no longer have subsidized loans made by private banks but by direct government lending instead.

The most infuriating thing is that we already tried this.

People complain about how banks gave loans to people that didn't need them and blame the banks for the economic mess. How is the government doing the same thing any different?

We all know what happens when government gets involved in the higher education system. We get things like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is completely inefficient.

This is just like every other program the government enacts. Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid all sound like good ideas. Healthcare for the elderly, money for the poor and low interest rates on school loans sound great but each has horrible repercussions.

A student in support of the plan said to the Skiff, "It's good because having the government take control of the loans will lessen interest rates and cut out the third and fourth parties."

The problem is that government is the third party in this situation. We need to cut them out and let students and banks negotiate the rates.

Another aspect of this plan is that it encourages kids that shouldn't really be going to college to go.

A high school student in the bottom of his or her class may not see education as the best option for them, and would instead go out and make money, perhaps start a business or go to a technical school. But with low interest rates, going to school costs next to nothing because taxpayers will be footing the bill. It's suddenly a good idea to follow the crowd and go have some fun.

These are the students who will be getting drunk every night, skipping classes and wasting college professors' time and taxpayer money.

Obama talks about money like it's his money. It's not. It's our money.

Right now you may be saying, "I don't even pay that much in taxes."

Actually you pay a lot of taxes you don't see, and even though you may not pay income taxes, your parents and other adults do. Rather than choosing to spend it on you or giving it to a charity they are forced to pay it to programs they may not even support.

People should stop looking to the government to cater to them for everything. They need to look inside themselves and see if the decisions that they make will truly benefit them.

Michael Lauck is a broadcast journalism major from Houston.

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