Good News: Chuckie Schumer Wants to Expand Government Loans

You'd think this guy would lay low for awhile considering he and his pals Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters et al. are primarily responsible for the mess we're in.

But no, enough government intervention is never enough for Chuckie Schumer. God help us.

Sen. Charles Schumer is calling on the federal government to protect college students and their families from the credit crunch by expanding the economic bailout to include student loans.

"We have to build a wall around the student loan market to protect our kids from the credit crisis," Schumer said at a news conference yesterday in Massapequa outside Plainedge High School, where students from a senior government class peppered him with questions about college costs and loan availability.

"My parents tell me I have to be realistic about where I want to go, and money is nearly as important as how good my grades are," said Marianne Kennedy, 17, of Seaford, who is applying to both public and private schools. "They don't want me having huge debt when I graduate."

Maybe it would be better if a qualified money manager went to speak to these little urchins rather than a profligate spender with zero accountability.

The Wall Street bailout legislation passed by Congress last week gives the federal government authority to buy up bad student loan debt as well as bad mortgage debt.

In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked that they "pay special attention to the student loan market" as they carry out the bailout plan. He also wrote to every college and university in New York State, asking those that do not participate in the federal Department of Education Direct Loan student aid program to reconsider. Nationwide, 1,369 of more than 4,000 colleges and universities participate, according to a Schumer spokesman.

Schumer also is proposing that a commission be established to determine whether the federal loan program has enough resources if private loan programs dry up.

Great, another commission, likely to be stacked with a bunch of big-government leftists like ... Charles Schumer.

Wonderful.

This is what's know as chutzpah, boys and girls.

Well, no one ever accused Sen. Chuck Schumer of letting any sense of shame hold him back.

Ditto for irony.

Still, it was a bit surreal to see Schumer - one of the prime apologists for the faulty federally backed mortgages now dealing body-blows to the US financial system -laying the groundwork yesterday for yet more government meddling in the loan business.

"We need to build an impermeable wall around the student-loan market to protect our kids from this financial crisis," he said at Stuyvesant HS in Manhattan.

It's unclear exactly what such an "impermeable wall" might look like, though Schumer said he had asked Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to pay "special attention" to student loans - which, like most other credit, have dried up recently - as he executes the $700 billion federal rescue.

Schumer also called for a commission to figure out how the federal government can expand its loan program.

But one thing's for sure: This kind of talk should make taxpayers exceedingly nervous.

Schumer, after all, was a chief cheerleader for the feds' last major attempt to protect a sector of the economy from the rigors of the market.

That, of course, was the housing market - inflated to unsustainable heights, largely by the irresponsible mortgages given implicit government backing through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

And that recklessness was given what amounted to a congressional stamp of approval by legislators smitten with the idea of increasing poor and minority home ownership.

Or as Schumer himself put it back in 2003: "My worry is that we're using the recent safety and soundness concerns . . . as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie's mission." Oops.

For a guy who would hold a press conference to announce a can opening, it's amazing he never seems to realize his statements are actually preserved for posterity. But when most of the media overlooks such a history, it's not hard to see how he thinks he can get away with this nonsense.