Elsewhere on Capitol Hill last week, there were other appearances of the clown show that is the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), who has been a member of the House Financial Services Committee since 1991, was named chair of the committee in December.
Last week Ms. Waters showcased her ignorance in regards to the student loan crisis. She was grilling bank execs about how they were helping out with the student loan crisis.
Rep. Waters: “Today, there are more than 44 million Americans that owe – this is student loan crisis – $1.56 trillion in student loan debt. Last month, this committee received testimony that last year, one million student loan borrowers defaulted, which is on top of the one million borrowers who defaulted the year before.
“What are you guys doing to help us with this student loan debt? Who would like to answer first? Mr. Monahan, big bank.”
Bank of America CEO Brian Monahan: “Uh, we stopped making student loans in 2007 or so.”
Rep. Waters: “Oh, so you don’t do it anymore. Mr. Corbat?”
Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: “We exited student lending in 2009.
Rep. Waters: Mr. Dimon?”
JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon: “When the government took over student lending in 2010 or so, we stopped doing all student lending.”
In 2010, President Obama effectively nationalized student lending by cutting banks — which had been offering government-backed loans to students — out of the equation and having the government make the loans directly. Ms. Waters twice voted in favor of this idea. Since then, student loan debt has exploded to more than $1.5 trillion according to Ms. Waters.
Apparently Ms. Waters was unaware that the government was now making these loans. When Mr. Dimon pointed this out, she realized that the tact she had planned to take, that of trying to coerce the bank execs into providing “relief” for those young people who had naively entered into these loans, was not going to work. She quickly changed the subject.
Ms. Waters thought she would put on a show where she and her fellow Democrats would come off as standing up for the common people against the evil bankers and the deplorable Republicans. However, what she did was to point the finger directly at the Obama administration as the proximate cause of the student loan crisis.
She did put on a show. It just wasn’t the one she had planned.
And the Democratic leadership thought this was a good idea, to put her in charge of this committee? It makes you wonder who the adults are.