The White House plan to use budget reconciliation to dispense with ordinary Senate rules and pass parts of health insurance reform legislation with a simple majority of votes has raised justifiable objections not only from Republicans but some Democrats. But can anyone with a conscience truly condone passage of wholly unrelated amendments of the scope that some Democrats now envision?

The Wall Street Journal reports some Democrats are conspiring to heap other items onto the health insurance reform legislation that have nothing to do with health care, the insurance industry or pharmaceuticals. What’s up? Only business as usual in Washington, this time overseen by Democrats who have forsaken all that flowery oratory in 2008 about good governing principles.

The Journal reports one measure would significantly overhaul the student loan business, banning private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans. That means the U.S. Department of Education would be largely by itself in the student loan business, especially since previous Senate legislation has discouraged companies from making loans that aren’t federally guaranteed.

Some colleges and universities actually oppose this government takeover of the student loan business because, as former Education Secretary Lamar Alexander said in The Washington Post, it will eliminate loan programs that are tailored to specific student and family needs and could well result in more years spent paying off those loans, all while Democrats in Washington celebrate the expansion of another federal program far beyond what anyone ever intended. As Alexander noted, “You’ll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else’s education — and to help your U.S. representative’s re-election.”

Some also oppose the government taking over the student loan business because, at least alongside private lenders, it has a dismal record of preventing defaults.

Even if you feel differently about this issue — and we acknowledge the need for improvement to the current system — one must certainly agree that tacking this on to unrelated health insurance legislation, without so much as a committee vote or a Senate hearing, is surely wrongheaded and irresponsible. What’s more, it only justifies similar tactics when the day comes that Republicans are again in charge on Capitol Hill. How can Democrats then object if they themselves have readily encouraged such questionable legislative behavior?

And so, it would seem, the cycle of bad government only continues, with taxpayers on the hook and in the dark.