By Bill Hobbs
February 17, 2012
On July 1, 2010, the federal government took over the student loan program, which had been operated by private-sector lenders for the previous 45 years.
Seven month's later, on Jan. 31 of this year, the Obama Department of Education announced new rules for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program that showed, once again, the true anti-religion heart of the Obama presidency.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program was created by Congress in 2007 to encourage graduates to go into public service professions. The program forgives the balances of student loans for such graduates after they have made 120 full payments.
The new rules deny loan forgiveness to graduates who chose to go into public service with a religious orientation.
Specifically, the new rules state the following:
“Generally, the type or nature of employment with the organization does not matter for PSLF purposes. However, if you work for a nonprofit organization, your employment will not qualify for PSLF if your job duties are related to religious instruction, worship services, or any form of proselytizing."
The new rules also state the organization cannot be a labor union or a partisan political organization.
While we can agree it's good not to encourage people to go to work for a labor union or a partisan political organization, the Obama administration's anti-religion stance is troubling.
Some might think the new rules make sense, given constitutional and legal language involving religious liberty and barring the government from pushing a specific religion. But these rules go too far.
As they have shown with their new mandate forcing Catholic institutions to provide free contraception and abortion drugs to employees via their employee health plans, the Obama administration has a very narrow definition of what is acceptable religion protected by the First Amendment.
Essentially, the contraception mandate only protects the religious liberty of Catholics as far as going to church and believing the tenets of their faith. As soon as Catholics start helping non-Catholics by operating hospitals and schools, they must violate their faith and bend to the will of government.
The Obama administration views anything the church does outside of the church building itself as not covered by the First Amendment's religious liberty language.
Just as ObamaCare gave the Obama administration incredible power to regulate the health care industry - power it is now using to mandate limits to how Catholics live out their faith in America - the government takeover of the student loan business has empowered government to make these new student loans forgiveness rules, by which the administration again attacks religious organizations that dare to reach out to the broader community.
Religious organization often view community outreach ministries as part of their religious mission. A church operating a free clinic for the poor, a shelter for the homeless, or gathering clothing and food for the less fortunate often views its efforts as both living out the will of the Savior and seeking to bring more people to Him. In other words, charity is often also a form of proselytizing.
Such not-for-profit ministries need good college graduates, but because they generally can't or won't pay as well as jobs in the for-profit sector, the student loan forgiveness program was there to help them compete for good talent.
But the new rule barring loan forgiveness for graduates whose "job duties" are "related to ... any form of proselytizing" is not a narrow prohibition against government helping fund, say, the salary of a preacher or rabbi, but an overly broad rule through which the government can now refuse to forgive student loans for anyone who takes almost any job at any non-profit connected to a church or religious organization.
While religion-based public service is now on the Obama administration's enemies list, graduates can get part of their student loans forgiven if they take a job with federal, state or local government agency or a government organization such as public water, bridge or housing districts, or nonprofit organizations that the Internal Revenue Service has designated as tax exempt. Also, graduates who take a job in emergency management, the military, public safety, law enforcement are eligible, as are graduates who take a job at a public health service, public library, public school or other public-school-based service, public interest law firms, or in early childhood education; public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly.
The new rules are designed to steer graduates away from faith-based public service, to the only kind of public service the Left admires: government and secular. It doesn't matter at all to the Left that faith-based public service organizations are very effective at helping people. In fact, they seem to view it as an affront to their vision of a society run by Big Government in which the faithful do not allow their faith to guide their lives outside of the church door.
So, under the new student loan forgiveness rules, if you take a job with your state's Emergency Management Agency, you're cool, but if you take a job with a large religious organizations' disaster relief program, you're not. If you take a job at the local city health clinic, you can get your student loans forgiven, but not if you go to work for a non-profit hospital run by the Catholic Church.
But while you can't get your student loan partially forgiven by working for the latter, the Catholic hospital can still be ordered by the Obama administration to give you free contraception and abortion pills.
It is ... unforgivable.
Seven month's later, on Jan. 31 of this year, the Obama Department of Education announced new rules for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program that showed, once again, the true anti-religion heart of the Obama presidency.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program was created by Congress in 2007 to encourage graduates to go into public service professions. The program forgives the balances of student loans for such graduates after they have made 120 full payments.
The new rules deny loan forgiveness to graduates who chose to go into public service with a religious orientation.
Specifically, the new rules state the following:
“Generally, the type or nature of employment with the organization does not matter for PSLF purposes. However, if you work for a nonprofit organization, your employment will not qualify for PSLF if your job duties are related to religious instruction, worship services, or any form of proselytizing."
The new rules also state the organization cannot be a labor union or a partisan political organization.
While we can agree it's good not to encourage people to go to work for a labor union or a partisan political organization, the Obama administration's anti-religion stance is troubling.
Some might think the new rules make sense, given constitutional and legal language involving religious liberty and barring the government from pushing a specific religion. But these rules go too far.
As they have shown with their new mandate forcing Catholic institutions to provide free contraception and abortion drugs to employees via their employee health plans, the Obama administration has a very narrow definition of what is acceptable religion protected by the First Amendment.
Essentially, the contraception mandate only protects the religious liberty of Catholics as far as going to church and believing the tenets of their faith. As soon as Catholics start helping non-Catholics by operating hospitals and schools, they must violate their faith and bend to the will of government.
The Obama administration views anything the church does outside of the church building itself as not covered by the First Amendment's religious liberty language.
Just as ObamaCare gave the Obama administration incredible power to regulate the health care industry - power it is now using to mandate limits to how Catholics live out their faith in America - the government takeover of the student loan business has empowered government to make these new student loans forgiveness rules, by which the administration again attacks religious organizations that dare to reach out to the broader community.
Religious organization often view community outreach ministries as part of their religious mission. A church operating a free clinic for the poor, a shelter for the homeless, or gathering clothing and food for the less fortunate often views its efforts as both living out the will of the Savior and seeking to bring more people to Him. In other words, charity is often also a form of proselytizing.
Such not-for-profit ministries need good college graduates, but because they generally can't or won't pay as well as jobs in the for-profit sector, the student loan forgiveness program was there to help them compete for good talent.
But the new rule barring loan forgiveness for graduates whose "job duties" are "related to ... any form of proselytizing" is not a narrow prohibition against government helping fund, say, the salary of a preacher or rabbi, but an overly broad rule through which the government can now refuse to forgive student loans for anyone who takes almost any job at any non-profit connected to a church or religious organization.
While religion-based public service is now on the Obama administration's enemies list, graduates can get part of their student loans forgiven if they take a job with federal, state or local government agency or a government organization such as public water, bridge or housing districts, or nonprofit organizations that the Internal Revenue Service has designated as tax exempt. Also, graduates who take a job in emergency management, the military, public safety, law enforcement are eligible, as are graduates who take a job at a public health service, public library, public school or other public-school-based service, public interest law firms, or in early childhood education; public service for individuals with disabilities and the elderly.
The new rules are designed to steer graduates away from faith-based public service, to the only kind of public service the Left admires: government and secular. It doesn't matter at all to the Left that faith-based public service organizations are very effective at helping people. In fact, they seem to view it as an affront to their vision of a society run by Big Government in which the faithful do not allow their faith to guide their lives outside of the church door.
So, under the new student loan forgiveness rules, if you take a job with your state's Emergency Management Agency, you're cool, but if you take a job with a large religious organizations' disaster relief program, you're not. If you take a job at the local city health clinic, you can get your student loans forgiven, but not if you go to work for a non-profit hospital run by the Catholic Church.
But while you can't get your student loan partially forgiven by working for the latter, the Catholic hospital can still be ordered by the Obama administration to give you free contraception and abortion pills.
It is ... unforgivable.
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