Todd Tiahrt

In our nation’s higher education system we depend heavily on federal student loans to help students obtain their college degree. Each year this turns millions of college students into new loan consumers. We, as college students and as a nation, need student loan reform.

We have turned college students into a generation who will have massive amounts of debt upon graduating college, and in many cases placing debt upon their families in order to help pay for tuition costs. The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act would continue to raise the maximum Pell Grant annually for the next decade to match cost-of-living increases, based on the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent, essentially cutting out the middleman and making the loans more beneficial for students, their families and the nation.

The benefit of this is huge and is in the best interest of constituents for lawmakers to vote for this. I am appalled that some Kansas lawmakers have put the interest of the banks over the interest of Kansas families.

The bill, which passed 253 to 171, would allocate about $80 billion over the next decade for new loans, community colleges, school construction and early childhood programs without increasing taxes or adding to the deficit. How? Instead of paying bankers to provide loans for which they bear no real risk, the government would make the loans directly.

Representatives Todd Tiahrt and Lynn Jenkins were among those to vote against the bill.

Student loans like everything else no longer provide better access to higher education but are instead a huge risk free, financial industry with huge profit margins.

President Obama is fighting for students. He wants to take the $94 Billion and give it directly to students, instead of using the banks as middlemen and giving them huge profit margins off poor college students.

The Christian Science Monitor explains...

WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH STATE FINANCIAL AID AND TUITION AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Last year, average tuition and fees at public four-year institutions came to $6,590, but the net price (what's paid after receiving various grants) was $2,850. Students also paid $7,750 for room and board, the College Board reports.

Prices, and the degree to which they're going up this year, vary considerably from state to state. Because of revenue declines, at least 32 states have made cuts to higher-education funding recently, and more may follow. California students can expect to see cost increases of up to 20 percent, while those in Washington State, Florida, and New York will see a spike of about 15 percent, says Terry Hartle, a senior vice president at the American Council on Education in Washington.

A number of states, including Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, have had to cut back on need-based student grants. But pockets of good news exist: Missouri's schools will not raise tuition this year. The state held funding steady by tapping into federal stimulus dollars. Maryland has a tuition freeze in place for the fall, but recent state budget shortfalls have cast doubt on whether that can continue in the spring.

WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH TUITION AND AID AT PRIVATE SCHOOLS?

Last year, average tuition and fees at private four-year institutions came to $25,140; the net price was $14,930. Students also paid $8,900 for room and board.

Tuition and fees for this year are up about 4.3 percent at 350 private, nonprofit schools surveyed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Washington. That's the lowest increase since the 1972-73 academic year, although it's still higher than overall inflation, the group notes.

Despite drops in endowments and charitable giving, many private schools have anticipated rising demand for financial assistance from families. The schools in the survey increased their aid budgets by an average of 9 percent for this year.

Some have gone even further to compete for enrollment, freezing tuition or offering to match the price of nearby public institutions.

WHAT IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOING TO INCREASE AFFORDABILITY?

For one, it's giving a major boost to Pell Grants for low-income students. The stimulus package raised the maximum grant amount for this year to $5,350, from $4,731 – the largest increase since the program started in the early 1970s. Next July 1, it will rise again, to $5,550.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act would continue to raise the maximum Pell Grant annually for the next decade to match cost-of-living increases, based on the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent. The bill has recently been approved by the House and is now awaiting a vote in the Senate.

"A $40 billion investment in the Pell Grant scholarship [would be] historic," says Rachel Racusen, spokeswoman for the House Education and Labor Committee. "Over the past 30 years, the purchasing power of the Pell Grant has significantly declined, so ... these investments are going to ... make sure that Pell Grants can once again cover an effective share of a student's tuition cost."

One controversial element in the bill is a restructuring of federal loans. It would eliminate a part of the system that has paid subsidies to private lenders to give them incentive to make college loans. All new loans would originate through the government's Direct Loan Program.

The Obama administration's reasoning on this: Since the government already guarantees student loans, it should reap the interest payments rather than private lenders that haven't taken on the risk. But the private sector would still be contracted to service and collect the loans, so borrowers should notice little change.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates this shift would save $87 billion over 10 years, which could pay for the Pell Grant increase and other education initiatives. Some lawmakers oppose this idea, saying they doubt it would really save that much and that it may lead to job losses in the lending community. But the change appears to have enough support to be approved in Congress this fall.

Other provisions in the bill include funding for community colleges and incentives to improve college graduation rates. The stimulus package, meanwhile, has expanded college tax credits for low- and middle-income families.

Yesterday evening I had the chance to interview Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family about Kansas politicians: Congressman Todd Tiahrt, Senator Sam Brownack, and Rep. Jerry Moran and their connections to C Street. He had some tough words for Rep. Tiahrt whom he outed as a member of the religious cult on "The Rachel Maddow" show earlier this week.

Jeff Sharlet is a journalist who has been writing about religion for about 15 years and is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone. He spent the last 5 years as a research scholar at the New York Research Center for Religion and Media.

In our interview I asked Jeff about how he was able to uncover this secret conservative cult. Jeff was invited into the cult as everyone else is, though he did not personally live in the C Street house he did stay at one very simular and visited the C Street house. He was able to share with me information about the organization that goes much farther than one house in Washington.

"The C Street house is one of many, not even the main one. The main one is gorgeous mansion over looking the Potomac river with a waterfall carved into the lawn called "The Cedar" in Arlington, Virginia. Around "The Cedar" there are about twenty properties associated with "The Family" one of which is this house called "Ivanwald" where at any given time maybe a dozen to eighteen men will live. These men are "being groomed for leadership" they tend to be in their early twenties when I was there I was around thirty I was pushing the outer age limit. If you stick around long enough you might get a mentor for a congressman, you have weekly sessions with politicians and business leaders and so on. In that capacity actually living at "Ivanwald" for a little less than a month I visited the "C Street" house a couple of times. The way I got into all of this was I was invited, thats the only way you get it. I write a lot about religion, a friend of my was afraid her brother had joined a cult and asked if I would talk to him. He said "no, no really it's not a cult you've got to come see this for yourself" He invited me. I think they we're really interested in having me as a member even though I'm not really an "elite", partly because I had been invited, partly because I'm a journalist so to say an influencer, and I think the we're pretty clear that part of what interested them was the fact that my father's Jewish, so they like the idea of Jews bowing before Christ. So they brought me into "The Family" and made me a member"

When I asked Jeff about Congressman Tiahrt's involvement he told me the story about his first time visiting the "C Street" home and seeing Rep. Tiahrt speaking with "The Family" leader Doug Coe as told in his book. Jeff laughed as he told us how he "brought them (Doug Coe, and Rep. Tiahrt) hot coco" as the spoke.

Tiahrt was a short shot glass of a man, two parts flawless hair and one part teeth. He wanted to know the best way “for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim.” The Muslim, he said, has too many babies, while Americans kill too many of theirs.

Doug agreed this could be a problem. But he was more concerned that the focus on labels like “Christian” might get in the way of the congressman's prayers. Religion distracts people from Jesus, Doug said, and allows them to isolate Christ's will from their work in the world.

“People separate it out,” he warned Tiahrt. “'Oh, okay, I got religion, that's private.' As if Jesus doesn't know anything about building highways, or Social Security. We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping.”

“All right, how do we do that?” Tiahrt asked.

“A covenant,” Doug answered. The congressman half-smiled, as if caught between confessing his ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug was talking about. “Like the Mafia,” Doug clarified. “Look at the strength of their bonds.” He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt's face. Tiahrt nodded, squinting. “See, for them it's honor,” Doug said. “For us, it's Jesus.”

Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their “brothers”: “Look at Hitler,” he said. “Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.” The Family, of course, possessed a weapon those leaders lacked: the “total Jesus” of a brotherhood in Christ.

“That's what you get with a covenant,” said Coe. “Jesus plus nothing.”

Rep. Tiahrt denied any involvement with the "The Family" in Saturday's Kansas City Star:

Tiahrt would not respond to questions, but said in a statement he has “never lived at the C Street House, nor have I participated in any regular Bible studies or so-called counseling sessions there.”

Jeff Sharlet, as detailed in Sarah Burris' post from last week on the Everyday Citizen, begged to differ telling an intimate, and disturbing story about a "counseling session" between "The Family" leader Doug Coe and a younger Rep. Todd Tiahrt as told above.

Yesterday a special aired in Wichita called "The Christian Mafia" where Rep. Tiahrt was once again found denying any involvement with the Family and also attacked Jeff Sharlet.

"In a Statement he (Tiahrt) calls Sharlet an unscrupulous author, and says "to be clear I have never lived at the C Street house nor have I participated in any regular bible studies or so-called counseling sessions there."

In my interview with Jeff yesterday one of the many things that we covered was Tiahrt's denial of any involvement with "The Family" Jeff had much to say about Tiahrt.

"At the very best, the very best, you can say about this is it is disingenuous, here we have a documented encounter and he (Tiahrt) needs to address that. If he wants to say you know what I went to this one session and it was so crazy this guy comparing Jesus to Hitler, then I would welcome him. Instead he claims to have no connections when it is clear that he has had a connection. More over he has an interesting connection, as I know from my review of 600 boxes of "The Family" documents, they believe in a concentric theology. What this means is Christ has one message for the masses, but the masses can't handle the truth. Then there's an inner-circle and they get a different message, and then there's an even more inner-circle and they get the real truth, and that's how Christ operates the World today, he reveals a different set of truths for the masses and the elites. It's anti-Democratic and anti-Christian but that's their approach to things. The Rhetoric about a "Totalitarian of Christ" thats inner-circle stuff. Whether they decided Todd Tiahrt was such a strong figure that they wanted to jump start him into the core teachings of the group or whether he had more of relationship with them, he's got to defend that. He definitely had a connection with them and he ought to explain what it was."

With accusations of Rep. Jerry Moran and documented cases of Congressman Todd Tiahrt being involved I asked Jeff what he thought about the race for fellow Family member Sen. Brownback's U.S. Senate between the two, and whether the family would prefer one over the other or run two Family members against each other.

"I can't tell you much about Jerry Moran, this is just one of the scoops that has come out during this whole "C Street" scandal. The only people I identify as being involved I have personally witnessed, been told personally by them or documented from "The Families" own records. I've never said Moran before this, because I didn't have this information but it is research that now needs to be done... This (two family members running against each other) happens all the time actually. That is one of the ways "The Family" survives, they don't endorse candidates they try to have as much access and influence as they can. Doug Coe, the leader of the group, says the work with power where they can and build new power where they can not. Based on a lot of research on the group, Jerry Moran is more their type of candidate, their problem with Tiahrt is the guy is a buffoon. They are looking for polished people."

It appears that "The Family" is bigger than just the "C Street" scandal, what was once seen as a place of religious gathering has turned out to be a place of back room dealings and secrets. This is the time for us to demand answer from our Local, State and National politicians as to what their involvement in "The Family" is and how far this really goes.

Look for more information from my interview with Jeff Sharlet through the week.

This evening I had the chance to interview Jeff Sharlet, author of "The Family" about Kansas politicians connections to Congressman Todd Tiahrt, Senator Sam Brownack, and Rep. Jerry Moran. He had some tough words for Rep. Tiahrt who he outed as a member of the religious cult on "The Rachel Maddow" show earlier this week.

Rep. Tiahrt denied any involvement with the "The Family" in yesterday's Kansas City Star:

Tiahrt would not respond to questions, but said in a statement he has “never lived at the C Street House, nor have I participated in any regular Bible studies or so-called counseling sessions there.”

Jeff Sharlet, as detailed in Sarah Burris' post from last week, begged to differ telling an intimate, and disturbing story about a "counseling session" between "The Family" leader Doug Coe and a younger Rep. Todd Tiahrt. (Click on the link to read Sarah's post.)

I spoke to Jeff today for the interview I will be publishing throughout the week, but we did cover Tiahrt's most recent comments and I wanted to share it with you as a brief teaser:

"At the very best, the very best, you can say about this is it is disingenuous, here we have a documented encounter and he (Tiahrt) needs to address that."

I have to say, that's pretty damning at it's best.

Look out this whole week for my interview with Jeff.