WASHINGTON - Students will turn to Uncle Sam, not private lenders, for loans to pay for their college educations, the House voted Thursday. The legislation is a blow to major banks and student loan giant Sallie Mae, which will be cut out of a large part of the $92 billion business. The bill also eases restrictions on students who are convicted of drug possession, erasing a 10-year-old provision authored by Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, that limits their access to federally guaranteed student loans. [continues 495 words]
WASHINGTON -- Looking for a way to improve the responsibility-taking among black fathers? Or to improve the economic standing and stability of black families overall? Or for confronting these statistics: One of every three black kids is being raised by a never-married mother; one of 20 white children is being raised by a never-married mom. One step to addressing this complicated problem is to rewrite a law that forces federal judges to send people to jail for mere possession of one type of drug, a substance more commonly used in the black community than by whites. Crack cocaine is created by adding powder cocaine to baking soda and water and then baking the mixture. The result is broken into "rocks" and can be sold in very small quantities. In the mid-1980s crack became a significant problem in cities. [continues 976 words]
WASHINGTON - Cut money for the anti-drug advertising campaign, the auditors who advise Congress recommended Friday. The Government Accountability Office said lawmakers should believe a $42.7 million study that panned the eight-year-old TV, radio, newspaper, magazine and Internet ad campaign. The government has spent $1.2 billion since 1998 on ads ranging from "parents, the anti-drug" to the current "above the influence" series. President Bush has asked for $120 million for the program next year. A firm hired to evaluate the campaign said the ads were memorable but seeing them didn't make kids less likely to use marijuana. [continues 218 words]
Says Lack Of Enthusiasm Rankles Congress President Bush risks losing congressional support for some aspects of his anti-drug program because the White House downplays the seriousness of the meth epidemic, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said Friday. He said members of Congress " Republicans and Democrats alike" are frustrated at the administration's proposal to kill the program that underwrites local drug task forces and efforts to reduce money for areas that have special drug problems. All the newest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas are trying to cope with meth, Souder told members of the Bush administration at a hearing he conducted. [continues 479 words]
If a fungus can be unleashed to kill the plants that produce cocaine and heroin without contaminating the soil, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, contends, the U.S. government should test it and then use it in the drug fields of Colombia and Afghanistan. He's angry at what he sees as foot-dragging in the Bush administration, especially in the drug czar's office. "We're frustrated and amazed at the resistance to looking at alternative methods" of eradicating the drug-producing plants, Souder said. [continues 1168 words]
WASHINGTON - Drug offenses, or refusal to answer questions about possible convictions, booted 8,903 Hoosier applicants out of contention for federal financial aid for college in the past six academic years, about one out of every 200 requests for grants or loans. Students who are convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs can lose all or part of their eligibility for the $67 million federal pool for grants, loans and work-study assistance under legislation written in the 1990s by Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd. [continues 396 words]
WASHINGTON - A Ball State sophomore is suing the federal government over a law written by Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, that blocks financial aid to college students with drug convictions. In a class-action case filed in South Dakota, Alexis Schwab, two other students and Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, which has fought the Souder law since it went into effect, say the law punishes people twice for the same offense and does taxpayers more harm than good by making education more difficult to get for some students. [continues 449 words]
Calls White House Strategy 'Appalling' WASHINGTON White House opposition to congressional efforts to force more federal money to be spent on fighting methamphetamine is an insult, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said Thursday. Using hotly charged language, Souder accused the Bush administration of giving short shrift to anti-meth efforts and to trying to weaken the drug czar's office. "The United States Congress wants some action out of this administration on meth," Souder said. Instead, he said, there's been an "appalling lack" of an anti-meth strategy. [continues 290 words]
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration still does not understand that meth is not just a problem in isolated pockets of the country, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said Thursday, as his irritation with the White House's anti-drug policies erupted several times as he quizzed the drug czar. The drug czar's office "seems intent on disproving what everyone else in the country is seeing -- that methamphetamine is an epidemic," Souder said at a three-hour hearing to review President Bush's proposed 2007 budget for anti-narcotics programs. "I don't understand the lack of understanding." [continues 486 words]
WASHINGTON - The Republican Congress is "all sizzle and no steak" when it comes to GOP promises to cut federal spending, rein in big government and restore ethics and honesty to government, Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th, told a crowd of conservative activists Saturday morning. But he said there's "reason for optimism" because of a budget-trimming bill that was signed into law a week ago and moves toward tightening ethics rules in Congress. Pence cautioned the audience at the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference, which drew more than 1,000 attendees, not to turn their backs on Republican congressional candidates this year out of disgust with the GOP-led Congress. Congress under Democratic control would be worse, he said. [continues 388 words]
Undoes Souder Ban for Drug Convictions WASHINGTON Students with drug convictions in their pre-college years will no longer be cut out of the $67 million federal pool for grants, loans or work-study assistance. Students will lose all or part of their eligibility for federally subsidized aid, however, if they are convicted of drug offenses while they are enrolled at a college or university. A 100-word section in a sweeping budget bill approved by the Senate on Wednesday changes the student aid provisions written seven years ago by Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd that blocked assistance to students with drug offenses committed at any time in their lives. [continues 428 words]
Leavitt Accused of Obstructing the War on Meth WASHINGTON -- A member of President Bush's Cabinet blocked a plan for dealing with the country's meth epidemic by dragging his feet, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said Friday. He accused Michael Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services, of behind-the-scenes maneuvering to slow or stop congressional action on a bill to restrict the sale of an ingredient used to make methamphetamine. A spokeswoman for Leavitt strongly denied Souder's accusations and said he has wrong information. [continues 579 words]
Souder: Drug Czar Lax On Near-Epidemic WASHINGTON – People in the Northeast or Chicago "would laugh if you told them there's a meth epidemic," a Bush administration anti-drug official said Tuesday, contradicting the attorney general and prompting a stern reaction from members of a House committee. Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, scolded the Bush administration for not having a plan to attack the spread of methamphetamine, which he said is on the cusp of a nationwide epidemic "like we've never seen in America" because it is beginning to spread from rural areas to cities. [continues 386 words]
WASHINGTON - The drug czar's office didn't break a federal law with its packaged anti-drug news stories that were narrated by fake journalists, Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said Friday. But the video news releases sent to hundreds of TV stations in the past three years should have made clear that they were produced at taxpayer expense, he said. Souder, who chairs a subcommittee that oversees national anti-drug programs, said the General Accountability Office was wrong when it ruled that the Office of National Drug Control Policy violated the law by sending the pre-packaged news stories to TV stations without disclosing to viewers that the government had produced them. [continues 659 words]
Pence met briefly with Karzai on Saturday as part of an overseas trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan with several other members of Congress. Pence delivered holiday cards to soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. The United Nations has said Afghanistan is turning into a "narco-state;" poppy production accounts for a third of the country's total economy. Opium and heroin are produced from poppies. Afghanistan supplies 87 percent of the world's heroin, the United Nations estimates. This year, the U.S. government estimated, Afghanistan will produce its highest levels of poppy ever, with 206,700 hectares planted with poppies, up from 61,000 last year and 30,750 in 2002. Most of the heroin produced from Afghan poppies goes to Europe. [continues 410 words]
WASHINGTON - Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, hasn't done enough to change the federal government's policy about financial aid for college students who have drug convictions, Democratic congressional candidate Maria Parra said Friday. Parra, who hopes to beat the five-term incumbent, said denying grants or scholarships to people who have been convicted of using or selling drugs does not help people with drug problems. "If anything," she said, "the law perpetuates the cycle of addiction and denies aid to those who need it most." [continues 353 words]
WASHINGTON - Interrupting the opium poppy-based economy of Afghanistan should be part of the Pentagon's military mission, an expert on the country told the Senate on Wednesday. The U.S. policy has recently shifted from ignoring the existence of poppy fields and opium warehouses to destroying them when military operations happen to come across them. Mark Schneider, senior vice president of International Crisis Group, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Pentagon policy should go further. "Actively destroying the opium network should be within their mandate," he said. "Afghanistan is in clear and present danger of descending from a narco-economy to a narco-state." [continues 303 words]
FDA Urged To Warn Canadian Seller. Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, has asked the Food and Drug Administration to send a warning letter to a Canadian company that sells medical-use marijuana. It is legal in Canada to possess, grow and sell marijuana for medical purposes. In a letter sent this week, Souder asked the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration to tell the Canadian company, Amigula, that it can not send marijuana to U.S. customers and that "any advertisements promoting marijuana for a medical purpose will be regulated under the existing rules that apply for direct-to-consumer marketing of drugs, including stating the adverse health risks." [continues 251 words]
White House Study Questions Programs' Value WASHINGTON - It's questionable whether taxpayers are getting good value from a series of anti-drug efforts, according to a new White House analysis of several hundred federal programs, including drug courts and TV commercials aimed at teens. One, the safe and drug-free school program, was judged a failure. Although the Bush administration said the assessments were not linked to its budget proposals for 2004, it has proposed cutting the schools program by $50 million. [continues 1380 words]
Rep. Mark Souder is off base in working to deny loans to college students with drug records, Paul Helmke said Friday. "It doesn't make sense," Helmke told about 200 students at Bishop Luers High School at a debate of the candidates for the Republican nomination for the 3rd District congressional seat. Souder did not attend because his flight from Washington Thursday night was delayed and rerouted. In addition to Helmke, candidate William Larsen spoke to the students. In response to a question about the student aid legislation, Helmke said it was poorly written and based on a flawed idea. [continues 430 words]
