How in the world did the architecture lobby trick Rep. Perlmutter into this terrible idea?  In a bizarre and rambling article penned by Perlmutter in this week’s Denver Business Journal, the Democratic Congressman asserts that hard-working Americans taxpayers who never attended college, or those who chose more lucrative fields, should be paying off the student loans of architects who provide  “pro-bono services to the community”.

Well, it’s either that, or we borrow from China to pay off these student loans.

Has the Congressman ever considered that there may be too many students entering architecture these days?  Did it ever occur to him that the field of architecture has changed radically not once, but two times in the past generation?  Some older architects still in the profession entered the field when architecture firms were filled with workers at desks creating designs using pencils, protractors, and similar tools.  Eventually, firms could replace an entire row of architects with one or two new people using CAD software.  Today CAD software has become so powerful that designs that took weeks to complete in older versions of the software can be done in days or hours, further diminishing the need people in architecture firms.

Congressman Perlmutter, can you say supply – demand mismatch?

President Obama has opened the floodgates for every “great idea” for loan repayment with his spendthrift  student loan forgiveness programs.  Unfortunately, many of these loan repayment schemes involve compensating graduates who decide to enter the leviathan of local, state, and federal government – fields that Congressman Perlmutter considers “worthwhile causes” in his DBJ article.  Not only does Perlmutter get to pick winners and losers here, but he gets to encourage more people to seek employment in government.  We know – it’s just what our country needs.

How about student loan repayment for private sector workers – you know, the people who actually create the wealth in this country that allows for the gold plated pensions and the unaccountable professional environment that marks most areas of government “service”?  We’re not holding our breath.

But, let’s get back to our first question:  how did Perlmutter decide to take up the banner of architecture student loans?  Perlmutter ranks third out of the entire Congress in 2014 contributions from architectural services donors. And, Pat Stryker’s brother’s architecture firm is the largest architectural services donor. Perhaps, like many other Democrat politicians, he can be bought too.