New Mexico's senators might be expected to bring the most they can to our state in financial-recovery money — and to mitigate the harm that might come from federal cutbacks during these tough times.

But because the whole country is clamoring for bailouts — and against valve-tightening on the Washington pipeline — our two Democrats have got to be reasonable about it.

What our state is seeing instead is a don't-stop-the-pork response to the Obama administration's proposal to dismantle the student-loan bureaucracy and put more educational aid in students' hands.

The idea is as sensible as it is overdue: Let the federal government issue student loans directly, instead of relying on banks and on nonprofit organizations to administer them.

What? Doesn't the White House realize that, in New Mexico alone, 177 people eventually would be put out of work, and that our state would be short $8 million in salaries?

Hmmm — all the more reason for short-circuiting the system, especially when you project New Mexico's costs nationwide. But that's not how it's being looked at here: This will hurt our state, the student-loan boss told The Albuquerque Journal — which, as part of a two-story package Monday, noted that the guy got a
56-percent pay raise in a recent year. He's knocking down $300,000 a year now in salary and benefits — and he's only one of nine executives enjoying great pay: Between 2006 and 2007, compensation costs for the system's top nine executives, says the Journal, tripled from half a million dollars to a million and a half.

That's money our college students could be getting in loans or Pell grants. Nationwide, the Congressional Budget Office figures that a direct-loan system would save $94 billion over the next 10 years.

B-b-but, Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall seem to be saying in a letter to Senate budget officials, such reforms "will negatively impact student services and outreach efforts."

Maybe. Maybe not: Even less well-off youngsters today are so Web-savvy that they can deal directly with Washington for student loans — but it should be "borrower beware" in any case.

As for the claim of lost jobs, it would be gradual:
44 in the first year, maybe 30 a year as the state program is phased out. But these are people whose educational and administrative skills could be absorbed by our school systems. And that's where our senators' powers of persuasion and problem-solving should be aimed — not in status-quo opposition to a president trying to carry out his promises of change.