A Trifecta of Deceit and Obfuscation from Frank Guinta

by: William Tucker

Mon Mar 05, 2012 at 14:50:47 PM EST

Unscrupulous for-profit colleges are "innovative"

Guinta called the Education Department's regulation preventing unscrupulous for-profit colleges from inflating course credits to receive federal financial aid an "unprecedented and unnecessary federal intrusion into post-secondary affairs."

The practices, which result in students wasting their money and the federal government's money pursuing worthless credentials, are "innovative methods for awarding credit," said Guinta. (!)

Guinta proudly co-sponsored H.R. 2117, which would repeal the regulation, saying, "This bill removes the federal government from yet another place where it doesn't belong." This is not a particularly surprising statement from a man who said the FDA has no role in protecting the nation's food supply.

Getting seriously deceptive about skyrocketing gas prices

Guinta says he's "getting serious about skyrocketing gas prices."

Like many of you, I'm tired of events in the Middle East determining how much we pay for gas in Manchester. I've had enough of hostile foreign nations' oil exports influencing how much people pay for gas in Somersworth.

Drill, baby, drill, says Guinta. Ken Green, resident scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, offers him a lesson in Economics 101.

"The world price is the world price. Even if we were producing 100 percent of our oil," Green said, if prices increase because of a shortage in China or India, "our price would go up to the same thing." ... "People don't understand that."

Guinta certainly doesn't.

Conveniently reinterpreting the Constitution on infrastructure projects

When Guinta first ran for Congress, he took what he called a "tough stance" and opposed the use of federal funds for Portsmouth's deteriorating Memorial Bridge.

He said, if a project is not a "federal responsibility, other funds than federal funds are going to have to be found. It's a tough stance, and it doesn't mean the project's not worthy. But the budget is $1.3 trillion out of balance. We have to bring the budget into balance."

After a year in office, his tough stance has apparently given way. Guinta now supports a massive river dredging project for the Port of New Hampshire and replacing the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge. He cites the Constitution as his basis for making infrastructure projects a national, Federal responsibility. (Did he misread that on the first go-round?) "I'm here to govern," he says sheepishly.