The GOP's Pre-owned New Leader

The GOP's Pre-owned New Leader
Robert L. Borosage


Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future.

Jittery House Republicans have chosen Ohio Rep. John Boehner over Rep. Roy Blunt as their new majority leader. Boehner will replace Tom “the Hammer” DeLay, now facing trial for money laundering and other charges in Texas. The party’s chorus is cued up to celebrate Boehner as a new start — a clean contrast to the foul odor of corruption that pervades this Congress.
Good luck. Boehner, lauded by supporters as a “bridge” across Republican factions, has paved that bridge with the cold cash of special interest money. Boehner — a leader of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 takeover of the House — is renowned in Washington for maintaining a perpetual tan from Florida jaunts, liberally hopping on corporate jets dispensed by lobbyists, and raising tons of cash from K Street. His lavish beach parties for rich donors are his notorious signature. And he first came to public attention by giddily dispensing checks from tobacco executives on the House floor a decade ago.
Boehner touts change with a wink of the eye. "Yes, I am cozy with lobbyists,” The Washington Post reports he told his colleagues, while assuring them that he would not overreact to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal by curtailing the lavish travel and spending habits they have come to enjoy. For a Republican caucus that can barely summon a majority to pass a ban on former members-turned-lobbyists using the House gym, while grousing about anything approaching real reform, Boehner is the perfect choice.
And for the rest of us, Boehner personifies how the cost of corruption in Washington gets passed on to ordinary Americans. As chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, he is known as the “representative from Sallie Mae.” Sallie Mae is the leading provider of loans to college students and their parents, and Boehner has consolidated his leadership by dispensing big bucks raised from lenders in campaign and party contributions. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that Sallie Mae is the biggest donor to Boehner's political action committee, called Freedom Project.
In return, he protects their interest. Most recently, he helped develop and push through legislation that may weaken the loan industry’s competition — the Direct Student Loan program, where students bypass Sallie Mae and others and borrow directly from the government. While taking it to their competition, Boehner openly reassured bankers that they would not be harmed greatly by this legislation — as reported in the Chronicle of Education — he informed a group of bankers that they could rest easy in his “trusted hands.”
College tuition is soaring, and grant levels aren’t keeping up. Under Boehner’s leadership, Congress has refused to raise the top level of Pell grants, despite repeated campaign pledges by George W. Bush to do so. As a result, more and more students have to work part time, while taking on ever greater levels of debt to pay for college. Already, hundreds of thousands are having college priced out of reach; thousands more drop out, unable to sustain the burden of classes and work and debt. And those that do make it will find the difficult burden of paying of those loans just got harder.
The new pre-owned leader of the Republicans in Congress is rewarding the bankers that contribute to his campaigns by protecting their profits and threatening their competition. And in this most corrupt Congress, he’s portrayed as the reformer. When the stench gets this thick, it is no wonder that people start talking about cleaning the stables.