The Banking Lobby Rears Its Ugly Head

No surprises here. Bush is beholden to his pin-striped partners:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Wednesday it cannot support a U.S. Senate bill to cut college student lender subsidies by $18 billion and boost student grants, but it will work with Congress on the issue.

As the Senate neared a vote on its version of legislation passed in the House of Representatives, the White House said it "cannot support Senate passage of (the bill) in its current form because of serious concerns with some provisions."

While the administration claims it would veto the bill because not enough additional money would be in the form of grants that would not require repayment, the real reason is...

The House last week passed a bill that would cut subsidies to lenders -- such as Sallie Mae, Citigroup and Bank of America -- by $19 billion and boost grants.

(emphasis added)

Citibank is a key player here, so far as Bush is concerned. A major shareholder for Citibank is Al-Awaleed bin Talal. Tangentially, the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, was Executive Vice President & Head of Global Private Banking.

Once again, genuine progress for working and middle class Americans is stymied, while Bush and his cronies look for those last crumbs to feed their corporate masters and partners.

The end can't come fast enough for our country.