A short while ago in this post I pointed out the fact that President Obama’s plan to nationalize even more of our nation’s economy, in this case student loans, would pull the rug out from under 30% of the Bank of North Dakota’s loan business. At the time, KXMB quoted Senator Kent Conrad as declaring that he’d fight to get an exemption for North Dakota’s “socialist bank.”

Now, according to this Washington Times story, Senator Conrad is going to try to make good on that promise. My response to this is not that it’s good for North Dakota; no, it’s symptomatic of a problem in Congress. Even worse, it’s distracting from the real problem: President Obama’s attempts to socialize even more of the economy.

The federal government is broke. It doesn’t have any money; it’s up to its eyeballs in debt. The last thing it should be doing is promising to loan out more money, but even more so to legislate itself a monopoly and take the student loan industry completely away from other banks. Someone should ask Senator Conrad the following: if this takeover of the student loan market is bad for North Dakota, then how can it be good for the rest of the nation?

Instead of addressing the real problem, the radical left agenda of his political party, Senator Conrad is trying to put a “bureaucratic band-aid” on the situation by pursuing special favors for his state. That doesn’t serve our state or our nation well. Instead of more politics as usual, Senator Conrad needs to use the example of the Bank of North Dakota as a reason why the federal government should not mess with the banking industry even further.

The only thing Senator Conrad has accomplished in this case is make North Dakota look like Louisiana or Nebraska, states rightly vilified for seeking special treatment in dysfunctional legislation that the people don’t want. Way to go, Senator. We North Dakotans sure are Hoping for Change when you’re up for re-election!