Thursday, April 25, 2019
New Reuters/Ipsos Poll Of The Democratic 2020 Candidates
The chart reflects the results of the latest Reuters / Ipsos Poll -- done between April 17th and 23rd of a national sample of 2,237 Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents, and has a margin of error of 2.9 points.
Warren Has A Real Plan For The Student Loan Debt Crisis
The charts above, from NBC News, illustrate a significant and growing problem in the United States. Colleges and universities are being priced out of reach for working and middle class students. To attend a college, students are forced to borrow large sums of money -- meaning they start their working lives with a large amount of debt.
The Republicans don't care. As long as the rich are doing well, they are happy. Their solution to the growing student debt in the last Congress was to raise the interest rate on those student loans. Trump offers nothing better. He wants to limit the amount of money a student can borrow -- which would affect the students who need help the most.
There is someone who has a plan to address the student loan debt crisis -- Senator Elizabeth Warren (D- Massachusetts). She is running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2020, and one of her campaign planks is a plan to address this. Here, in her own words, is what she proposes:
It’s time for bold action to actually fix the debt crisis. Here’s what my new plan would do:
- It cancels $50,000 in student loan debt for every person with household income under $100,000.
- It provides substantial debt cancellation for every person with household income between $100,000 and $250,000. The $50,000 cancellation amount phases out by $1 for every $3 in income above $100,000, so, for example, a person with household income of $130,000 gets $40,000 in cancellation, while a person with household income of $160,000 gets $30,000 in cancellation.
- It offers no debt cancellation to people with household income above $250,000 (the top 5%).
- For most Americans, cancellation will take place automatically using data already available to the federal government about income and outstanding student loan debt.
- Private student loan debt is also eligible for cancellation, and the federal government will work with borrowers and the holders of this debt to provide relief.
- Canceled debt will not be taxed as income.
An economic analysis from leading experts on student loan debt finds that my plan would provide at least some debt cancellation for 95% of people with student loan debt (and complete and total student debt cancellation for more than 75%), provide targeted cancellation for the families that need it most, substantially increase Black and Latinx wealth, and help close the racial wealth gap.
The experts also conclude that my plan will likely provide a boost to the economy through “consumer-driven economic stimulus, improved credit scores, greater home-buying rates and housing stability, higher college completion rates, and greater business formation.”
The time for half-measures is over. My broad cancellation plan is a real solution to our student debt crisis. It helps millions of families and removes a weight that’s holding back our economy.
That’s step one.
Step two is making sure nothing like this ever happens again. We need to fundamentally change the broken system that created the crisis in the first place.
Our public schools for K-12 students are free for everyone. That’s because we understand that a high school-level education is a basic need for our society and our economy — and it should be available to all.
But we expect everyone but the wealthy to take on mountains of debt if they want to get a post-secondary education. This is closing off opportunities for generations of Americans and widening this country’s racial wealth gap. The cost of college deters people from attending college. And it forces people to drop out before completing their degrees. Only about two-thirds of students complete a four-year public college degree in six years and only about a thirdof students complete a two-year public college degree in six years. The financial strain of attending college — the need to work many hours to cover costs — is a top reason so many people drop out.
College shouldn’t just be a privilege for those who can afford to take on the significant expenses associated with higher education. Like K-12 education, college is a basic need that should be available for free to everyone who wants to go. That’s why I’m proposing a historic new federal investment in public higher education that will eliminate the cost of tuition and fees at every public two-year and four-year college in America. The federal government will partner with states to split the costs of tuition and fees and ensure that states maintain their current levels of funding on need-based financial aid and academic instruction.
But we need to go beyond just covering the cost of tuition and fees. Non-tuition costs of college like room and board and books have been going way up too. Between 1975 and 2015, cost-of-living expenses grew by nearly 80% at public colleges even after accounting for inflation. Non-tuition costs now account for 80% of the cost of attendance at community colleges and 61% of the cost of attendance at public four-year colleges.
To allow students to graduate debt-free — especially students from lower-income families — we must expand the funding available to cover non-tuition expenses. In addition to the existing federal higher education funding that can be redirected to cover non-tuition expenses, we should invest an additional $100 billion over the next ten years in Pell Grants — and expand who is eligible for a Grant — to make sure lower-income and middle-class students have a better chance of graduating without debt. Research shows that more funding for non-tuition costs helps improve graduation rates, which must be our goal. . . .
Experts estimate my debt cancellation plan creates a one-time cost to the government of $640 billion. The Universal Free College program brings the total cost of the program to roughly $1.25 trillion over ten years.
The actual costs of these new ideas are likely to be even less than that. Experts find that my debt cancellation plan will create an economic stimulus, and study after study shows that investments in higher education provide huge returns for every dollar. But even setting aside the eventual returns to these investments, we can fully cover the cost of these ideas with revenue from my Ultra-Millionaire Tax on the wealthiest 75,000 families in the country — those with fortunes of $50 million or more.
We can address the student loan crisis and cancel debt for families that are struggling. We can provide truly universal free college. We can fix some of the structural problems that are preventing our higher education system from fairly serving lower-income students and students of color. We can make big structural change and create new opportunities for all Americans.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
8 Reasons Why House Democrats Should Impeach Trump
(Caricatures of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump are by DonkeyHotey.)Now that the Mueller Report has been issued, the question is whether House Democrats should immediately start impeachment proceedings against Trump, or just continue the investigation through other House committees (Judiciary, Intelligence, etc.).
Speaker Pelosi has come down on the side of not starting impeachment proceedings. She said the investigation of Trump can be done by other committees.
I am a supporter of Nancy Pelosi. I supported her re-election as Speaker, and I think she has done a good job as Speaker this year. But I believe she is wrong on this issue.
Others (like Bernie Sanders) say impeachment should not be started because it will take voters minds off the message they want to send. That is just silly. The only real issue in 2020 will be Donald Trump. Everything else is secondary.
I firmly believe House Democrats should immediately start impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Here are my reasons:
1. Donald Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice. The Mueller Report makes that very clear. And it wasn't just once, but many times.
2. The only reason Trump wasn't indicted for those crimes is because the Justice Department has a standing rule that they won't indict a sitting president. But that rule doesn't exonerate Trump. In fact, Mueller said he could not exonerate Trump, and made sure we understood that all of the legal elements of obstruction were present.
3. Trump continues to obstruct justice. He recently told a member of his administration to ignore a subpoena to testify before Congress.
4. Congress has the authority and duty to act when there is evidence of corruption and criminality in the presidential administration. Impeachment is the way Congress deals with this.
5. Impeachment must start in the House of Representatives -- and the idea that the Senate (controlled by Republicans) might not remove Trump from office should not enter in to whether the House should do its job or not. House Democrats must do their job, and let the Republicans face the voters in 2020 if they won't do their job.
6. The current committees investigating Trump will only have a few highlights broadcast on most news stations. An impeachment investigation will likely have the entire proceedings broadcast (like it was done when Nixon was being impeached). If you want more people to see the truth, an impeachment proceeding is the way to do that.
7. Donald Trump has been made bolder by the Justice Department refusing to indict him for his criminal conduct. He will continue to break the law unless he is impeached. He must be made to realize that his criminal conduct is NOT acceptable.
8. History is being made by the action or inaction of House Democrats. If they fail to impeach, then future presidents will know they can break the law with impunity -- and our democracy will suffer (and maybe even disappear).
New Poll Shows Trump With Stronger Disapproval Now
Trump is bragging that the Mueller Report completely exonerated him of wrongdoing. But the public doesn't see it that way. This new poll, done completely after the report was released, shows that now 39% approve of the job Trump is doing while 57% disapprove. That 18 point negative approval gap is the largest ever recorded in this poll regarding Trump job approval.
This chart shows the results of the newest Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between April 19th and 21st of a national sample of 1,992 registered voters, with a margin of error of 2 points.
Latest Monmouth Poll On Democratic Candidates For 2020
The chart represents the results of the latest Monmouth University Poll -- done between April 11th and 15th of a national sample of 330 registered Democratic voters, with a margin of error of 5.4 points.
Note that only six candidates garnered more than 2% -- Biden (27%), Sanders (20%), Harris (8%), Buttigieg (8%), Warren (6%), and O'Rourke (4%). I know it's still very early, but the rest of the field needs to start gaining some ground if they want to stay in the race.
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