Sen. Ted Cruz, champion of students, as long as they don't want Pell Grants, low student loan payments, or health care.

Sen. Ted Cruz, champion of students, as long as they don't want Pell Grants, low student loan payments, or health care.

... [Connelly] is actually a beneficiary of the very health care law that Cruz was protesting during his speech. And in an appearance on MSNBC Friday morning, Connelly explained just how ironic it was that the senator would use his story to bludgeon the president and the Affordable Care Act. "A friend of mine called me the next morning as I was on the way to an optometrist appointment .... [and said], 'While Ted Cruz was talking about why the ACA's bad, he mentioned your name.' And I said, 'Well, that's funny. I'm heading to an appointment I can only go to because of Obamacare.'"

Sen. Ted Cruz is outraged——about the negative impact Obamacare is having on the lives of people like John Connelly. Connelly is a Rutgers University student burdened by too much debt and without a permanent job lined up when he graduates this winter. Which apparently somehow has something to do with the Affordable Care Act, Cruz was suggesting. O, the horror of what Obamacare is doing to this young man. Except: In addition to the ways Obamacare has actually improved John Connelly's life, student loans and high college tuition are among the key problems he faces—and wouldn't you know that back in March, Cruz sponsored an amendment that would not only have repealed the health care parts of the Affordable Care Act, but also the student loan and Pell Grant reforms that were attached to it. Cruz's amendment would have cut Pell Grants, raised federal student loan payments, and cut funding for community colleges and historically black colleges . Clearly Cruz is just up to his eyeballs in concern for people like Connelly.