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We relate once again to the intersection of news media, politics and politics. From there, we can see how and why government really works – and mainly how and why it doesn’t work the way it should too often.
This is where all the vehicles of governance converge and collide: the executive, legislative and judicial branches – plus those of us in the media. For better or worse, we play an undescribed, but still understood, role in shaping political agendas and priorities by what we cover and what we ignore.
Now this: we just saw some amazing news. Surprising because it was good news. Yet there he was, announced but barely noticed, right in the middle of this globe of horrific news.
If you’re finally worried about solving a long-standing issue in which your government’s bureaucracy has hired hard-working public servants, the news released last week by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was your kind of good news. . And we will get there. But we have to start by reminding you of what first happened at the intersection.
Perhaps you have seen another “60 minutes” article that left you furious at the injustice of the government’s inaction. Correspondent Lesley Stahl and a team were investigating a long-known but forever irreparable failure of a program designed to reward underpaid public servants. It was a well-intentioned 2007 program signed by George W. Bush, implemented by Barack Obama, to write off student loan debts of public servants ranging from teachers to the military who have made 10 years of monthly payments without ever default.
Managed by the Department of Education, the program has become infamous for being a jumble of bureaucratic rules that hurt those it was designed to help. When consumer protection officials first polled the program in 2017, Trump’s education department simply canceled it – with hundreds of thousands still in it – and was sued by the Federation. American teachers.
Last April, the Government Accountability Office released a scathing report. And CBS’s “60 Minutes” looked into the matter. Surely Joe Biden’s education department knew where this story was going.
Stahl’s article shows us the faces and tells the infuriating stories of awesome officials our government shamelessly trapped. They were not naive and helpless victims; all were qualified military lawyers. All had been officially assured that they had played by the rules and paid as required for a decade. But there was always a technical detail: the wrong type of loan company; wrong type of loan.
Last week, hours after the play “60 Minutes” aired, Secretary Cardona announced a temporary program designed to make things right for all of those who have been unfairly rejected by the sloppy and bogged down bureaucracy. Teachers, the military and other eligible officials will now have until Oct. 31, 2022 to reapply, show proof of 10 years of good faith payments – and then write off the rest of their student loan debts. .
Now back to our intersection of news media, politics, and politics. Think about the good governance that could have happened if our permanent news wired networks were still back in the realm of corporate journalism teams.
What if cable news networks regularly continued to bring original stories to Washington and especially to the field? What if they hadn’t pretty much ditched that role and done it on the cheap, paying talking heads to tell us the same old things about what they think about the old news everyone already knows?
What if, years ago, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox all broadcast their own Lesley Stahl / “60 Minutes” type versions of this governance failure? What if we had all seen our most deserving public servants tell us how they were misled and grossly rejected by the government they have faithfully served?
Isn’t it possible that Republicans and Democrats united to at least end this absurd injustice long ago?
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