Educational "Payday Loans"

Amusingly -- but for the fact that innocent people minding their own business will be forced to make the payments -- California leftists are caught holding a blatant double standard regarding loans.

Perhaps the best example of the [Capital Appreciation Bond] issue is suburban San Diego's Poway Unified School District, which borrowed a little more than $100 million. But "debt service will be almost $1 billion," [California State Treasurer Bill] Lockyer says. "So, over nine times [the] amount of the borrowing. There are worse ones, but that's pretty bad."

That's right, school districts all over California are awash in incredible debt that NPR ironically likens to (the left-wing stereotype of) "payday loans" that so many Californians got worked up about this time last year. Thomas Sowell thoroughly debunked that stereotype, but let's grant it for a moment, for the sake of argument. This huge mess is plainly made possible by government "oversight" of the financial sector, promoted by government "concern" about education, and directly caused by government officials running schools that they ought not be running. What does it say about leftists (and other fans of the government running everything) that they chose to go after payday lenders, while, at best, ignoring this real problem?

Apparently, by the left's lights, someone being held accountable for paying back a loan at some outlandish rate of interest is unacceptable, unless he is forced to by the government. It's as if government meddling is a kind of holy water that purifies almost anything, exempting it from critical examination. That's how mindless (and anti-mind) the left has become.

-- CAV