President Obama must not miss two omens presenting themselves

Right now, we taxpayers give big banks billions to subsidize their student loans.Giving big banks money is decidedly unpopular after the TARP bailout, among liberals and conservatives. So you'd think there would be consensus to end the subsidies.

Apparently not.

After the House passed President Obama's proposal to end the subsidies, offer students direct government loans and save taxpayers $80 billion, the Senate has the bill in limbo while bank lobbyists swarm the Capitol.

And now, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party is taking all their anti-bank populist rhetoric, and using it to support ... the banks.

At last weekend's Tea Party conference, Palin deliberately conflated ending the bank subsidies with the bank bailout:

The list of companies and industries that the government is crowding out and bailing out and taking over, it continues to grow. First, it was the banks, mortgage companies, financial institutions, then automakers. Soon, if they had their way, health care, student loans.

Quite the litany of conflation actually. She packed about a bakers dozen of lies into three sentences. But allow me to focus on just one.

Just as Frank Luntz counseled conservatives to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would rein in the banks by illogically linking it to bailing out the banks, Palin is trying to kill the end of bank subsidies for student loans by illogically equating it with more subsidies for banks.

There's only one way to beat this phony populism: real populism.

It's time to speak out and tell the Senate to pass student loan reform.

Campaign for America's Future has set up a simple online tool so you can do just that.The choice is simple: $80 billion for Sarah Palin's big bank buddies? Or to make college affordable for the middle-class.