At a time when American field commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan say they need every single soldier they can get hold of, thousands of our battle-ready troops are being held back in the United States. Why not deploy them? Because the Pentagon has hung this label on them: "Security risk."

Ohhhhh. That conjures up images of soldiers unwilling to fight — maybe because they have sympathies for the bad guys. Or maybe they're unsavory characters who might attack their own commanders. But, no, there's nothing squirrelly in the makeup of these folks. Their only "crime" is that they've fallen deeply into debt here at home.

Like other Americans, military people can have an illness, go through a divorce or just get caught in a credit card crunch — and debt piles up. But our troops also are targeted by predatory "payday lenders" — chains of quick-money outfits clustered around military bases, luring soldiers to borrow against their next paychecks at exorbitant interest rates.

For soldiers whose debt payments reach about a third of their paycheck, the military brass designates them a risk and yanks their security clearance, meaning they're barred from duty abroad. The Pentagon's rational is that soldiers in debt might be tempted to sell secrets or military equipment to the enemy. More than 6,300 members of the Air Force, Navy and Marines have lost their clearances in a recent four-year period due to financial reasons. The true size of the problem, however, is much larger, since the Army — which employs the vast majority of our troops — refuses to release its numbers.

But why isn't the Pentagon standing with the troops? Instead of branding them for life as security risks, the top dogs should work with these good soldiers to refinance their loan-shark debts with long-term loans at a low — or even zero — interest rate. Lenders should not be allowed to profit from the hardships of American soldiers. Whatever happened to "support our troops"?

LAWMAKERS CASH IN AS LOBBYISTS

Old Congress critters never die — they just flitter away to K Street.

Take Dennis Hastert. Actually, he's already taken. The longtime Republican lawmaker retired last November, but rather than return to Illinois, he has alighted just a few blocks from the Capital at the blue-chip lobbying firm of Dickstein Shapiro. The firm lured Hastert with more than half a million bucks in annual pay, designating him "strategic counselor" on the legislative needs of its corporate clientele.

Dickstein Shapiro brags that it lobbies for more than 100 of the Fortune 500 corporations — a lineup that includes tobacco giants, drug companies, the nuclear industry, mercenaries like Triple Canopy, and such brand names as AT&T and TimeWarner. Hastert will feel right at home in this crowd, for he was always a faithful legislative errand-runner for corporate America.

Indeed, corporate interests essentially ran the place when Hastert was speaker of the House, with the likes of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff given a free hand to cut corrupt deals. While Dennis no longer has the muscle to ram through a corporation's agenda, he certainly has his old buddy network and insider knowledge to get favors done — this time for personal gain.

Hastert is hardly the only Capital Hill alum to cash in on his public trust. In recent years, more than 200 former members have made the lucrative metamorphosis from lawmaker to lobbyist, and Congress' feeble ethics rules even let members openly shop for lobbying jobs while they're supposed to be doing their legislative work. This is a revolving-door system that special interests are happy to exploit. Last year, they paid nearly $3 billion to hire Washington influence peddlers. That's $17 million for every day Congress was in session.

And Congress critters wonder why their public approval rating is a humiliating 11 percent.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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