Yesterday, the Office of Management and Budget released an updated version of its ten-year deficit projections, which upped the cost estimate for the administration’s reformed Pell Grant program by $27 billion over ten years.

The OMB reported that the increase “is driven almost entirely by technical revisions to reflect historic increases in the demand for Pell Grants as more individuals choose to go to college in a weakened labor market.” But that didn’t stop Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the ranking member on the House Education and Labor committee, from criticizing the administration for being fiscally irresponsible in its proposals for student loan reform:

The deficit is soaring, a substantial portion of the so-called savings in [the administration's loan reform] may never materialize, and now we learn it will spend billions more than expected…The more we learn about this bill, the more obvious it becomes that there is nothing ‘fiscally responsible’ about it. These new figures are yet another reason Democrats should slow down and consider the consequences of the plan they’re recklessly rushing through Congress.

Is Kline blaming the administration for more people wanting to go to college than it anticipated? That seems like something we’d want to encourage instead of criticize. But this response is in line with the rest of Kline’s awful record in terms of doing what’s best for students.

The administration has proposed changes to the Pell Grant program that would expand the grant pool and ensure that the grants automatically increase to keep up with inflation, as opposed to requiring Congress to constantly adjust when the grants decline in value. In order to pay for this, the administration wants to end the practice of subsidizing private loan companies to originate and service loans.

Meanwhile, Kline’s response to historic grant demand (and the undeniable need to increase America’s level of educational attainment) is to defend the federal government unnecessarily subsidizing ostensibly private companies to the tune of $87 billion over ten years.

Republicans have already conceded that the proposed student loan reforms save money, yet they keep defending the status quo, out of some sense that “a government program is somehow less socialistic when business is allowed to take a huge cut.” Given that demand is higher than ever, it’s time to stop pretending that private providers are anything but middlemen, taking money that would be better spent on students.

When the Chamber of Commerce is not busy calling for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” in an attempt to publicly put climate science on trial, it is spending its time trying to scuttle an attempt by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to increase corporate accountability.

The SEC has proposed implementing what is known as “proxy access,” which would make it easier for shareholders to replace a company’s board of directors. Right now, during a corporate election, a company sends out a “proxy” (ballot) with its preferred slate of candidates, while “dissenting shareholders [must] pay up for mailing and publicity costs, sometimes in the millions of dollars,” to send out their own, separate ballot.

The SEC wants to mandate that shareholders who hold 1 to 5 percent of a company’s shares (depending on the company’s size) for more than one year be allowed to put their candidates on the main ballot. But as the Wall Street Journal reported “the largest U.S. businesses, law firms and business groups have stepped up their challenge” to the SEC’s proposal:

In a last-minute bid to derail or weaken the measure, opposing groups have dispatched both Washington lobbyists and grass-roots letter-writers…The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, is engaging in an all-out lobbying effort with lawmakers that it plans to ramp up after Labor Day.

Currently, only five of the 4,000 public companies that the data service FactSet SharkWatch tracks allow proxy access.

With its opposition, the Chamber is showing its contempt for shareholders who want to hold managers accountable for their actions. As Harvard law professor Lucian Bebchuk wrote, “the objections to the SEC proposal are weak“:

The case for comprehensive reform of corporate elections is supported by a significant body of empirical evidence. Arrangements that insulate directors from removal are associated with lower firm value and worse performance. The proxy rules have been intended by Congress, the courts have stated, “to give true vitality to the concept of corporate democracy.” Adopting the SEC proposal, and the additional reforms I discussed, would advance this important goal.

Even if this proposal were enacted, it wouldn’t cure all that is wrong with American corporate governance, but it would be a step in the right direction. The Chamber, though, prefers a status quo in which corporate boards remain unaccountable to the very people who own the company.