Having already seen that our generation will neither cry harm nor foul when it comes to the money we’re losing through Social Security, Washington has officially come back for more. After all, Dick Cheney’s wounded comrade needs it.

In December, the Republicans put forth a $39 billion deficit cut, and much to their dismay, it not only met resistance from the Democrats, but from a few well-intentioned Republican senators as well.

Both sides of the aisle agreed that there needed to be significant cuts in spending (this administration spends like it’s Tom Cruise when he’s getting all “religious”), but they disagreed on where the cuts should be made.

The Senate was officially split 50-50, and Vice President Dick Cheney was awoken from his cryogenic slumber to cast the decisive vote, in favor of the bill.

Now, the Republicans who wrote this bill weren’t content to just cut the deficit. They needed to find a way to do it without risking making themselves or their friends uncomfortable. So they decided to take money from the people they target most: the middle class. (They hate the middle class as much as Gary Busey hates the fact that he only gets offered the parts that Nick Nolte turns down.)

Being the sneaky little bitches they are, they placed deep down inside the filthy bowels of this 700-plus page legislative document, a section about PLUS Loan (federal parent loans) interest rates. It starts with this sentence “PLUS Loans- Section 427A(l)(2) (20 U.S.C. 1077a(l)(2)) is amended by striking `7.9 percent’ and inserting `8.5 percent.’”

“Striking 7.9 and inserting 8.5!”

What!? What!? What!? My Dad voted for you George, now leave him alone. It was bad enough that the rates were going up from 6.1 percent to 7.9 percent this year anyway, was that extra .6 percent just to add insult to injury?

No, it wasn’t, but this was; this year the interest rates on Federal Stafford loans are set to rise as much as 1.5 percent.

Most students leave college too far in the red as it is. It is absolutely reprehensible that Washington would see fit to increase the already stringent burden that students shoulder. It seems as though they have made it their goal to see us into debt, and keep us from getting out of it.

However, we can’t blame it all on the Republicans. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act received broad bipartisan support. The act, which in general seeks to make it tough for middle- and lower-class citizens to get out of debt, is perhaps toughest on students. (To creditor lobbyists, bankruptcy is a worse influence on society than Kevin Federline.)

Yet again, snuck near the rear of this body of work, the act refers to student loans as henceforth, “nondischargeable.” So in my case, being a political science major, after college, the minimum wage I earn from Barnes & Noble will almost exclusively be dedicated to repaying my loans until the day I die.

Perhaps it’s that I’m na√É.√Øve, or simply ignorant, but I just can’t understand the logic in colluding against students. I would think that the collective well-being of America’s students would be integral to the long-term economic goals that lawmakers have for our nation, but apparently that’s not true. Rather than investing in our future, Washington is investing with our future.

Graham Kates is a junior political science major.