Do Congressmen Really Betray Their Constituents To Vote For Their Campaign Donors? Let's Look At Two, One Dem and One Repug, Who Just Did

Allen Boyd forgot his makeup; Paul Ryan never leaves home without it

Last week the DCCC had an inspired idea in their campaign to unseat fast rising Republican leader, Paul Ryan (R-WI). All the media outlets in Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Janesville got a press release entitled "Representative Paul Ryan Just Says No To Putting More Americans on the Path to a Better-Paying Job and Reducing the National Debt." The release went out on the 17th, right after Ryan voted against HR 3221, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, which passed with a huge majority, 253-171. It's the largest single federal investment in higher education in American history." Six mainstream conservative Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats but Ryan never even considered such a move. He's dead set against the entire philosophy of government actually helping improve people's lives, He lives in a dark, black and white world where the only rules that matter are the Law of the Jungle and the Golden Rule-- he with the most gold rules and everyone else can go die. It's nothing new for Paul Ryan to oppose a common-sense solution meant to help Americans compete for the best jobs, by helping families afford college tuition. It was somewhat shocking, though, that he also voted against paying down the national debt, particularly given his role-- as a 100% rubber stamp for the Bush Regime-- in running up the national debt to its highest levels in history.

“Given the chance to help more students compete for a better-paying job while paying down the national debt at the same time, Representative Paul Ryan sounded an all-too-familiar tune: no,” said Ryan Rudominer, National Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Parents struggling to pay for their children's college in this economy deserve better than Representative Ryan trying to block a solution that will put them on the path to a better-paying job.”

 
The measure, which was violently opposed by predatory lenders who make a bundle off student loans-- and the political hacks on their payroll-- will make federal student lending more efficient through a variety of reforms that will save the federal government $87 billion. Of those savings, $77 billion will be invested toward making college more affordable and $10 billion will be used to pay down the national debt. The measure increases the amount of Pell Grants over the next two years, lowers the interest rates of federally subsidized student loans, expands the Perkins Loan program, and streamlines the application form for financial aid and envisions cost savings by:

o       Converting federal lending to the Direct Loan Program.
 
o       Establishing a competitive bidding process, allowing the U.S. Department of Education to select lenders based on how well they serve borrowers.
 
o       Allowing non-profit organizations to continue servicing student loans.

In Ryan's southeast Wisconsin district alone 14,127 students will get Pell Grants in 2010 and the total amount available for the districts students rises from $50.1 million to $62.3 million. Ryan has never given a second thought to the well-being of his constituents, other than the ones who give him big campaign contributions anyway. On the other hand, it was a bit of a shock when Blue Dog Allen Boyd, who represents the hard-pressed eastern part of Florida's panhandle, crossed the aisle and voted with the Republicans. The DCCC didn't send out a press release to Tallahassee media outlets about that.

Under the new law Boyd's district, FL-02, will see Pell Grants for 19,322 students rise from $55.1 million to $68.5 million. And if there's a district that needs that kind of help for young people it's FL-02, where 18.1% of the residents under 65 (126,000 people) have no health insurance whatsoever and where unemployment levels are catastrophic and where 36,282 home foreclosures are projected in the next four years. And yet Boyd, like Ryan and the rest of the GOP, adamantly opposes the government helping average working families, although both are perfectly fine with multi-billion dollar corporate bailouts for Wall Street banksters. Ryan has taken in more in thinly veiled bribes from finance companies than any other member of the Wisconsin House delegation, including members who have been there far longer than he has. And Boyd has taken in even more than Ryan! Help defeat corrupt Blue Dogs like Allen Boyd on our nice, new BadDogs page; Ryan has his very own page, StopPaulRyan.