I remember how it was -- JR
Why Biden’s backdoor student-debt bailout is a hot mess
What’s a president to do when courts keep blocking his plans for being flagrantly unconstitutional? Try to quietly backdoor the same agenda in through another channel, of course.
At least, that’s the approach President Joe Biden is taking with student loans. His plan to “cancel” (read: transfer to taxpayers) up to $20,000 in student debt per graduate is tied up in court because it clearly exceeds his constitutional power to do so without Congress passing legislation. So his Department of Education just announced an income-driven repayment plan that would effectively “cancel” huge sums of student debt, at taxpayer expense, via another mechanism.
The idea behind an income-driven repayment system is that you pay back what you can based on your income and eventually the rest gets forgiven. A much less sweeping program, Revised Pay As You Earn, has been in place since 2015.
The White House’s new version is far more generous: It would require borrowers to pay at most just 5% of their discretionary income in monthly payments — and many borrowers wouldn’t have to pay anything at all. Then, in many cases, if you make those small (or in some cases nonexistent) payments for 10 years, taxpayers absorb the rest of your loan.
It’s kind of complicated, but in practice, it means many borrowers will get thousands and thousands of dollars in debt paid off by the taxpayer instead of having to repay what they owe. You don’t have to take my word for it. Policy scholar Adam Looney of the left-leaning Brookings Institution reports that while it will vary, the typical borrower will only have to pay back 50 cents for every dollar he owes — getting half his student debt “canceled” over time.
In a rare moment of candor, Biden Education Department officials called this plan a “student loan safety net.” That’s exactly what it is: a new welfare program, this time helping a relatively well-off demographic in college and professional graduates, paid for by us working taxpayers.
And it wouldn’t be cheap! The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says the plan, combined with Biden’s previous proposals, will cost $600 billion — or more — over a decade. That averages out to more than $4,000 per federal income taxpayer.
But there are far more problems just the cost. Ironically, this plan would actually make the student debt problem worse. How?
Well, it’ll make borrowing money via government loans to pay for college an even more attractive option than it already is because future borrowers will know they’re only going to have to repay a fraction of what they borrow. Unlike Biden’s “cancellation” tied up in court, this isn’t a supposedly one-time deal: It changes student-loan regulations for good.
There’s more money available in loans each year than is actually taken out. So we’ll almost certainly see students taking out tens of billions more in student loans every year if this plan goes into effect — not fixing the problem but instead only blowing more air into the student-loan bubble.
Oh, and don’t be surprised if colleges jack up tuition prices to even more absurdly high levels in response.
The Biden plan would also seriously warp student incentives. It effectively rewards lower-earning graduates and punishes high earners, as you’re going to get more forgiveness if your income is lower. As a result, the most-subsidized degrees would include, per Brookings, music, fine arts, drama and cosmetology. (Not exactly degrees in hot demand, if starting salaries are anything to go by.)
The least-subsidized majors? Engineering, computer science and business. You know, all those areas with high starting salaries because they’re in most need in our economy right now.
That’s right: Biden’s policy would distort market incentives and actively push students toward less productive, lower-paying degrees by offering them more in taxpayer bailouts if they go down those paths. Isn’t that, well, the opposite of what we should be trying to do?
Of course, Biden’s move makes more sense when you consider it as a political maneuver. It will effectively accomplish his goal of funneling tax dollars to a constituency — young, highly educated people — that overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic Party (and possibly saved Dems in the midterms). But shrewd politics don’t change the fact it’s a foolish policy with awful implications — and a raw deal for taxpayers.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/12/why-bidens-backdoor-student-debt-bailout-is-a-hot-mess/
****************************************************Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says political outreach email to teachers was a ‘mistake,’ blames staffer
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday blamed a staffer working on her reelection campaign for sending out the widely condemned email asking teachers to incentivize students to volunteer for her with class credit, calling it a “mistake” after an investigation was launched into the matter.
The “Windy City” mayor on Thursday denounced the recruiting initiative, placing the blame on her campaign staffer for sending the email to the official work inboxes of several Chicago Public Schools teachers a day earlier. According to WTTW News, the email reportedly sent by Lightfoot’s deputy campaign manager Megan Crane, encouraged teachers to offer students “credit” for volunteering through the campaign’s “externship program.”
“There was absolutely no nefarious intent on the part of the staff person and there simply was no coercion, I’ve seen that question bubble up. There was no coercion, no intent to do that by any means by this young woman and no city resources were used,” Lightfoot said in a press conference Thursday.
Lightfoot said she was unaware of the email until earlier Thursday when she was asked about it by a reporter.
“I’ll repeat again, the outreach to the CPS teachers via their emails was a mistake, should not have happened, and is not going to happen again,” she reiterated.
Lightfoot made the comment after the inspector general for the Chicago Public Schools reportedly launched an investigation to determine whether the campaign violated any district policies by soliciting volunteers for political campaigning using official email addresses made available to Lightfoot in her position as mayor.
The email reportedly said the campaign was looking to recruit “enthusiastic, curious and hard-working young people to help her win this spring. Students also had to have contributed 12 hours per week to the Lightfoot campaign to qualify for “class credit,” WTTW first reported.
The Chicago Teachers Union reportedly slammed the move as a “shake down,” and said it was “unethical and wrong on so many levels.”
Lightfoot’s mayoral challengers also denounced the email, FOX 32 CHICAGO reported, before her campaign reportedly rescinded the offer and said it would “cease contact” with CPS employees “out of an abundance of caution.”
“All [Lightfoot campaign] staff have been reminded about the solid wall that must exist between campaign and official activities and that contacts with any city of Chicago or other sister agency employees, including CPS employees, even through publicly available sources, is off limits. Period,” the campaign told the outlet.
Earlier Thursday, the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called on Lightfoot to “renounce” the “inappropriately coercive” email, saying it raised First Amendment concerns.
“The Lightfoot campaign’s email to Chicago Public School teachers urging them to offer extra credit to students as an incentive to volunteer on the Mayor’s re-election campaign is inappropriately coercive and raises First Amendment concerns,” the nonprofit organization said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has made clear that government officials cannot use their office or power to coerce participation or to punish for lack of participation in political campaigns.”
The embattled mayor faces nine candidates vying to unseat her next month as she eyes a second term. Election Day is scheduled for Feb. 28.
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New Jersey wants to be the state of disinformation and indoctrinate its students
The state of New Jersey has launched an initiative to require that all K-12 students be taught "media literacy," because the government must enlist teachers to fight so-called misinformation.
Let’s take an imaginary look at what the first day of school would look like.
Welcome, class, to "Basic Student News Literacy," It appears in your schedules as "BS News Lit." Our wonderful governor, his Eminence Gov. Phil Murphy, ordained that we must instruct all of you in how to think.
We will be telling you in great detail about the biggest news stories of the past several years – Russiagate, the stolen election … in Georgia, the dangers of unapproved social media and the 1619 Project.
First up, turn in your phones. My assistant Igor will be collecting them.
Why do we need your phones? We are going to remove any unapproved apps. Conservative news? Gone. Twitter. Nope. You have to use Mastodon now, where people think the left, I mean right way. Mastodon knows how to shut down crazy talk about two genders or claims about Hunter Biden.
Let’s see what else … Christian apps, can’t have them. But Jenny, your Church of Satan app is just fine. Alyce, I see you have a pro-life app. You have to stay after class for special re-education run by our friends at Planned Parenthood.
The digital era gives us access to endless information. And that’s bad. We will be adding a few approved apps to your phones. That’s where you should be getting your information. Pretty standard stuff, The Washington Post, New York Times, MSNBC and the American Federation of Teachers. No CNN, it’s too rightwing. That’s enough for your impressionable minds.
But you like Twitter? I told you, it’s banned. There is no big conspiracy of government trying to work with big tech to censor speech. Anything they tried to restrict was bad for you. The government only has your best interests at heart – especially when it takes away your rights. And if the legacy media don’t tell you about it, it’s for your own good.
You’ll note that this course lasts all year and has an extensive reading list. There are all the best books about the evil orange man whose name we dare not mention – Bob Woodward, Maggie Haberman and Mary Trump, as well as Howard Zinn’s "A People’s History of the United States," "Gender Queer" and "Das Kapital." All the greats.
No, Maurice, we don’t need any pro-America books. The best books are those that tell you what you know already. I’m watching you, young man. I think what we've got here is failure to communicate.
Now, let’s begin. This class is designed to help you cut through the noise of day-to-day news. The first, and most-important way to do that is to be sure not to read, watch or listen to any wrong think.
Today, we’re going to start off with truly great journalism – Pulitzer Prize winners.
I’m quoting our friends at Pulitzer, the ones who gave the New York Times and its star reporter Walter Duranty a well-deserved Pulitzer for its coverage of the alleged Russian genocide of Ukrainians in the 1930s. Pulitzer gave the Times and The Washington Post an award for coverage "of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration."
Ah, Russia, Russia, Russia. … What’s that, Kofi, the Times corporate site admits that it "has been publicly acknowledging" Duranty’s "failures" and the paper itself calls the genocide "one of the great atrocities of 20th-century Europe."
Then there’s Trump, you say, and the media didn’t actually ever prove connections between him and Russia? Even the Post admitted, "Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters."
Well, you are using bad facts – even if they come from approved sites like the Post and Times. In this institution, to get along, you go along.
Let’s go along.
We are going to discuss why you can’t trust right-wing news outlets and Republican politicians. They don’t just lie, they deny the results of elections. You can’t trust anyone who does that. Yes, Mia, the top Democrat in the House did say Trump had a "so-called election victory," and Hillary Clinton did claim the 2016 election was "stolen," but they meant well. That’s what’s important. It’s not the facts, it’s the feels.
And speaking of politicians who mean well, next month we’re going to have a special guest, Georgia Gov. Stacey Abrams. Of course, Li, the machines said she lost, but voting was suppressed, and who really can trust a machine?
I know, I know, more people did vote than before. But they voted the wrong way. So the correct votes were suppressed. I may have to set up a meeting with your birthing parents.
Next class, we are going to discuss trustworthy alternative news sources like "The Tonight Show," "The View" and top Hollywood celebrities. James Woods? That’s it, Andrew, you’re going to the principal’s office.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/new-jersey-wants-state-disinformation-indoctrinate-its-students
***********************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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