Yesterday was actually big victory for progressivism. Not in health care, but in student loan reform. Finally, a wasteful and worthless corporate welfare program was eliminated. The taxpayer dollars that were being thrown away on private profits will now be redirected to help low income students attend college and pay down the debt. This is [...]

It looks like Kent Conrad (D-ND), who chairs the Senate Budget Committee through which any reconciliation bill must pass, scored a nice, little, special deal for his home state as part of the student loan reform portion of the reconciliation package. From the summary of the bill: Section 2213. Agreements with State-Owned Banks. This section [...]

People don’t really care about the reconciliation fixes to the health care reform bill. They are a confusing mix of minor changes to taxes, subsidy levels, and scrubbing a few state-specific deals. I doubt one in one hundred Americans understand them. Obama has already made it clear he prefers the excise tax unchanged. While members [...]