Trumpist Regime Is Riven With Corruption That Few Are Paying Attention To During The Impeachment Process

While everyone is watching everything impeachment-related, the ordinary business of Trumpist destruction continues unabated. Let me give you two examples: air quality and education quality, although all of Trump's cabinet secretaries are working towards destruction of everything we cherish about our country. CBS reporter Kate Gibson wrote that while Obama was president air quality kept improving, But after the catastrophe in 2016, we've had two years of increases in the amount of pollutants in the air "with potentially deadly ramifications." Two analysts working for the EPA, Karen Clay and Nicholas Muller, "found that particulate matter air pollution fell 24% in the U.S. from 2009 to 2016, but it increased 5.5% the following two years. 'That increase was associated with 9,700 premature deaths in 2018'... [they wrote] in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research."

"The chemical composition of particulates point to increased use of natural gas and to vehicle miles traveled as likely contributors to the increase" in pollution, the economists wrote. "We conclude that the effect is due to diesel vehicles as well as some industrial boilers."

The findings could bolster theories advanced by experts such as Oxford University economist Kate Raworth who argue that unrestrained economic growth is contributing to climate change.

...The researchers also point to a decline in EPA enforcement of the Clean Air Act as a factor that could explain worsening air quality. The law, established in 1970, is responsible for preventing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and hundreds of millions of cases of respiratory and heart disease, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. 

But that's not an anomaly; that's how the Trumpets Regime works. Yesterday Danielle Douglas-Gabriel wrote for the Washington Post how Betsy DeVos has been spending millions of taxpayer dollars on unaccredited for-profit fake "colleges," many of them scams like Trump "University." She reported that "A trove of documents released Tuesday by the House Education and Labor Committee shows the Education Department provided $10.7 million in federal loans and grants to students at the Illinois Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Colorado even though officials knew the for-profit colleges were not accredited and ineligible to receive such aid."

Barr, Pompeo, Trump, Pence by Nancy Ohanian

The documents build on prior reports from the committee describing efforts by Education Department officials to shield Dream Center Education Holdings, owner of the Art Institutes and Argosy University, from the consequences of lying to students about the accreditation of its since-closed schools. Now it appears the Education Department tried to shield itself from an ill-fated decision to allow millions of dollars to flow to those schools. Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA), chairman of the House Education Committee, is threatening to subpoena Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for more documents related to the department’s role in Dream Center’s actions. Scott says the agency has obstructed the committee’s investigation and refused to answer questions, as emails and letters paint a picture of a federal agency complicit in an effort to place profits before students.

...By law, for-profit colleges must be fully accredited to participate in federal student aid programs. Neither the Art Institute of Colorado, the Art Institute of Michigan or the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago and Schaumburg held that seal of approval from their accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, in the 2018 spring semester. In reviewing Dream Center’s 2017 acquisition of the chain, the accrediting commission raised concerns about the quality of education at the campuses and downgraded their status for up to four years.

The accreditor issued a public notice in January 2018 and instructed Dream Center to inform students, but the Los Angeles company continued to advertise that the schools were accredited. Students kept enrolling, and the Education Department kept giving them federal loans, despite the schools’ ineligibility. Dream Center, which has since folded, could not be reached for comment.

Letters from senior Education Department official Michael Frola to the presidents of the two Art Institute campuses were among the documents made public Tuesday by House Democrats. Frola acknowledges in the May 2018 letters that the schools’ accreditation status made them ineligible to receive federal loans and grants through their students.

The for-profit schools’ downgraded designation as “preaccredited” institutions prohibited the receipt of federal student aid, although nonprofit schools with the same status can receive aid. To rectify the problem, Frola said, the department would retroactively-- and temporarily-- designate the Art Institutes as nonprofits effective Jan. 20, 2018, the date they lost their accreditation.

At the time, Dream Center was seeking approval from the Education Department, the accrediting commission and the Internal Revenue Service to turn the chain of for-profit colleges it purchased in 2016 into nonprofit schools. That designation would shield the company from having to report whether graduates were earning enough to repay their student loans.

The conversion was still in the works when Frola sent the letters. The timing and scope of the temporary conversion by the Education Department are causing alarm among House Democrats.

“The grant of temporary nonprofit status was directed at what had at that time, been a five-month lapse in eligibility, and five months where Dream Center was receiving funds in violation of [the Higher Education Act] and accompanying regulations,” Scott wrote in a letter Tuesday to DeVos. “This special treatment allowed more students to become entangled in Dream Center, magnifying the abrupt closure of the schools and the displacement of thousands of students.”

Former Art Institute of Colorado and Illinois Institute of Art students are suing DeVos and the Education Department, accusing them of unlawfully issuing loans the students say they should not be forced to repay. The National Student Legal Defense Network, a legal aid group representing the students, used many of the documents unearthed by House Democrats as evidence in the complaint.

“We’ve known for a long time that the Art Institutes lied to students about losing accreditation. Now, we know that the Department of Education misled them, too,” said Eric Rothschild, an attorney at the National Student Legal Defense Network who is representing the students.

Robert J. Infusino, one of the students involved in the case, was pursuing a degree in audio production at the Illinois Institute of Art when the school announced in summer 2018 it would be closing at the end of the year. Infusino, 23, was livid when he learned during a meeting about the imminent closing that the school had lost accreditation six months earlier but had not informed students.

He was $28,000 in debt for a degree he was a few months shy of completing. But transferring his credits to another school became a nightmare because few were willing to accept classes from an unaccredited institution. When Infusino finally found an online school willing to give him a chance, he had to retake classes, spend more money and take more time to complete his education.

“Had I known what was going on, I would have had time to evaluate the situation, maybe transfer before wasting time and money,” Infusino said. “I thought the government was supposed to look out for students. I feel betrayed.”

Is there are solution-- aside from just getting rid of DeVos, something that is dependent on getting rid of Trump, of course. Well even beyond that, Bernie has a good idea. His message to young Americans and their parents: "We want you to get the best education that you can, regardless of the income of your family. Good jobs require a good education. That is why we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free, and cancel all student debt. Just 30 years ago, tuition and fees at a public, four-year university totaled $3,360 per year in today’s dollars. That same degree today costs more than $10,000 per year in tuition and fees and more than $21,000 per year including room and board. Meanwhile, median hourly wages for college graduates have risen by less than $1 since 2001, when adjusted for inflation. The promise of higher pay has not materialized for recent college graduates, who have been taking out more and more in student loans to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of tuition. This has led to a generation of young people unable to start families, buy homes, and follow their dreams... You are not truly free when you graduate college with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. You are not truly free when you cannot pursue your dream of becoming a teacher, environmentalist, journalist or nurse because you cannot make enough money to cover your monthly student loan payments. And you are not truly free when the vast majority of good-paying jobs require a degree that requires taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain. We are going to end the racial and class disparities that persist throughout higher education. We will close these gaps and ensure all Americans, no matter their race, income, zip code, or immigration status receive a high quality education. Not only will we guarantee the right to a good, public education for all-- from childcare and pre-kindergarten through college-- we will free generations of Americans from the outrageous burden of student loans by canceling all existing student debt."

Conservatives Like Trump And Biden Don't Back The Idea Of Free College, But New Mexico Is Moving Ahead Anyway

Maggie Toulouse Oliver is New Mexico's Secretary of State and currently the progressive candidate for the U.S. Senate seat Tom Udall is retiring from. This morning she told me, in a statement, that "As a single mom who is still paying off student loans-- and has taken on additional loans to pay for my oldest son's college education-- I know how much this innovative plan will help New Mexicans. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is leading where Washington has failed. I look forward to bringing the lived experience of a single mom who worked her way through college to the U.S. Senate. And I look forward to taking bold New Mexico ideas, like universal free college tuition, with me to D.C. so that we can improve the lives of all American families."

You know how states are supposed to be the petri dish of innovative government? Yesterday, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that the state will pay the tuition for all students at New Mexico's 29 public two-year and four-year colleges. Bernie's platform in action! (Needless to say, Republicans and Status Quo Joe oppose these kinds of plans.) New Mexico will use revenues from oil production to pay for the program. Simon Romero and Dana Goldstein broke the story yesterday for the NY Times, emphasizing the universality of the plan and dubbing it "one of the boldest state-led efforts to expand access to higher education. The move comes," they wrote, "as many American families grapple with the rising cost of higher education and as discussions about free public college gain momentum in state legislatures and on the presidential debate stage. Nearly half of the states, including New York, Oregon and Tennessee, have guaranteed free two- or four-year public college to some students. But the New Mexico proposal goes further, promising four years of tuition even to students whose families can afford to pay the sticker price."

“I think we’re at a watershed moment,” said Caitlin Zaloom, a cultural anthropologist at New York University who has researched the impact of college costs on families. “It used to be that a high school degree could allow a young adult to enter into the middle class. We are no longer in that situation. We don’t ask people to pay for fifth grade and we also should not ask people to pay for sophomore year.”

By some measures, the tuition initiative will be the most ambitious in a growing national movement. College costs and student debt have emerged as major issues in the Democratic presidential primary, with two of the leading contenders for the nomination-- Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren-- promising to make all public colleges and universities free. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has a more limited proposal to eliminate community college tuition.

So far, states, not the federal government, have led the way-- sometimes out of a hope that a more educated work force would attract businesses and improve local economies. As of 2018, 17 states had programs promising free college to at least some students, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most of those programs cover tuition only at two-year institutions.

...Like the New York program, the New Mexico plan would cover only tuition, not living expenses, and the funds would be available only after a student drew from existing state aid programs and from federal grants.

But the New Mexico proposal does go further than New York’s Excelsior Scholarship in two regards: It is available to all students, regardless of family income, and it includes funds for adults looking to return to school at community colleges.

“This program is an absolute game changer for New Mexico,” Governor Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “In the long run, we’ll see improved economic growth, improved outcomes for New Mexican workers and families and parents.”

Officials contend that New Mexico would benefit most from a universal approach to tuition assistance. The state’s median household income is $46,744, compared with a national median of $60,336. Most college students in the state also come from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds; almost 65 percent of New Mexico undergraduates are among the nation’s neediest students, according to the state’s higher education department.

The new program in New Mexico would be open to recent graduates of high schools or high school equivalency programs in the state, and students must maintain a 2.5 grade point average. In contrast to other states, like Georgia, that have curbed access to public colleges by unauthorized immigrants, New Mexico would open the tuition program to all residents, regardless of immigration status.

Carmen Lopez-Wilson, the deputy secretary of New Mexico’s Higher Education Department, said the program would benefit about 55,000 students a year at an annual cost of $25 million to $35 million. She added that the state was trying to bolster its higher education system, which endured spending cuts of more than 30 percent per student from 2008 to 2018.

“We’re giving money directly to students,” Ms. Lopez-Wilson said. “This is the best way to begin rebuilding the infrastructure of higher education in New Mexico.”

Ms. Lopez-Wilson said the relatively low cost of the program reflected low tuition costs in the state, with many students already receiving forms of assistance. Other states that have less extensive tuition assistance proposals are spending far more.

A year of tuition at the state’s flagship campus, the University of New Mexico, costs $7,556 for state residents. At the state’s largest community college, Central New Mexico Community College, tuition costs are generally less than $3,000 per year.

New Mexico already has some of the lowest debt rates for graduates of four-year colleges. In the class of 2017, they owed $21,237 on average, compared with a national average of $28,650, according to the Institute for College Access & Success.

...[B]oth chambers in New Mexico are controlled by Democrats, and while fiscal conservatives still have considerable sway in the state, legislators have already shown willingness recently to increase spending on public education. State and federal spending on early childhood programs, including prekindergarten, is climbing to $546 million this year in New Mexico, a $135 million increase from the previous year.

In a departure from the belt-tightening after the 2008 financial crisis, New Mexico also gave raises to public-school teachers and the faculty and staff of the University of New Mexico this year.

The free-tuition plan points to the shifting political landscape in New Mexico, traditionally a swing state that was up for grabs by both major parties. It is now emerging as a bastion of Democratic power in the West, standing in contrast to other large oil-producing states controlled by Republicans. At the same time, an oil boom in the Permian Basin shared by New Mexico and Texas is lifting the state’s revenues.

In some ways, the burst of interest in free public college is a return to the nation’s educational past. As recently as the 1970s, some public university systems remained largely tuition-free.

As a bigger and more diverse group of undergraduates entered college in recent decades, costs rose, and policymakers began to promote the idea of a degree as less of a public benefit than a private asset akin to a mortgage, according to Professor Zaloom, of N.Y.U. Many states raised tuition, and students became more reliant on grants and loans.

“We should be looking at the examples from our own history,” Professor Zaloom said. Free college educations from the University of California, the City University of New York and other public systems, she added, have been “some of the most successful engines of mobility in this country.”

When we first endorsed Eva Putzova, one state over in Arizona, she told us she supports "fully publicly funded education from pre-K through college for all. Education is the great equalizer and foundation of any prosperous, civil society. Today, college students are $1.3 trillion in debt. This is a huge burden on them as they start their lives after school and enter the workforce.  We managed to provide a debt-free education to veterans after World War II, and to the baby boom generation as well. In 1969, in Arizona, annual tuition was $272 and one could earn that working in a minimum wage job for 1 month. Today's students in Arizona have to work for more than 6.5 months to pay for their year in college. Imagine what we could achieve if we approached education in a spirit of solidarity: today's graduates working and paying taxes which would allow a new generation to benefit from the same education they once received. Just like healthcare, education should be a right, not a privilege."

This is also of great concern to Milwaukie, Oregon mayor Mark Gamba, the current progressive challenger for the Oregon congressional seat held by conservative Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. It's one of the issues he's running on. "Our current system of secondary education here in America largely sets young people up for failure while theoretically setting them up for success," he told me last night. "Young adults coming out of college with massive debt can’t afford to take a job that pays poorly even though it might be the right stepping stone to the career they’ve always dreamed of, instead they are required to find a job that pays them well enough to keep up with their debt payment. It didn’t used to be this way, it shouldn’t be this way and it isn’t this way in many of the countries we compete with on the world market. Rather than a system of education designed to enrich bankers, we should have a system of education designed to have the most well-educated population in the world. That’s why I’m a strong proponent for free public college education for anyone carrying a decent GPA out of high school."

Jennifer Christie, the progressive candidate in an open Indiana congressional district in the suburbs north of Indianapolis, got back from walking the UAW picket line last night and wrote me that she "worked very hard to pay for my own college education and to pay off every single penny of my student debt. I had sleepless nights working 2nd and 3rd shifts in a nursing home to pay for my tuition while I was in school. I graduated with honors in both Chemistry and Biology... two degrees paid for mostly by me. I was the first to graduate from college in my family. So why do I support free college tuition? Because I know what a college degree did for me. Because we have tough problems to solve and education fosters innovation. Because it was so hard to fund it by myself. Because I don’t want my kids to have to do what I did. Because a simple tax on Wall Street speculation would pay for it. Because we bailed out Wall Street. Now it’s time for Wall Street to return the favor for my kids and yours. It will be the best investment they’ll ever make!"

Should We Re-Examine The Right To Vote?

I recall a high school teacher of mine-- at James Madison High School, the same Brooklyn high school where Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bernie Sanders, Cousin Brucie, Chris Rock, Chuck Schumer and Carol King went-- telling me-- or maybe the whole class-- that democracy pretty much sucked... but was better than any alternative system of government.

I can't count the number of times I've seen a Trump voter talking, when I've had to bite my tongue rather than go down a path that leads to... these morons shouldn't be allowed to vote. Should someone insisting the word is flat be able to vote? How about that Global Warming is a hoax? They're going to help decide whether mankind deals with it or not?

The part of the Socrates anti-democracy spiel in the video above that gives some hope is his idea that democracy among educated people was a good idea. Then the question becomes, "how educated?" And, with education increasingly a perk for wealthy people, we start running into a sticky-wicket. Conservatives have always opposed free public education-- and still do. Why should they, the reasoning went, pay for poor peoples' children to go to school.

Conservatives went bonkers over land grant colleges and opposed the two Morrill Acts (1862 and 1890). This was the beginning of state colleges and universities, publicly funded schools. It took a few years but the first Morrill Act was passed by Congress in 1859 and vetoed by worthless conservative shit-bag James Buchanan. It passed again in 1861-- the secessionist/conservative states having no say this time-- and Abraham Lincoln signed it. The first states to accept were Iowa, Kansas and New Jersey (Iowa State University, Kansas State University and Rutgers). The second Morrill Act (1890) was aimed at the former Confederate States but the twist is that-- each state had to prove there was no racism involved in admissions. The grants established several of what we called today historically Black colleges.

According to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research at SUNY, Buffalo, "technically it was the faster growth rate of the U.S. economy that led to its overtaking the United Kingdom as economic superpower." The study, published in 2018 by the Journal of Human Capital, explored the contributing factors. "Identifying the land-grant college system triggered by the 1862/1890 Morrill Acts (MAs) as a major contributor, we develop this hypothesis theoretically and test it via difference-in-differences regression analyses viewing the MAs as the experiment, the United States or U.S. states as treatment groups, and the United Kingdom as the chief control group in the country-level comparisons. Using national and state-level data, we estimate that the MAs produced sizeable educational and economic returns that catapulted the United States into its leading status."

An educated citizenry is one of the most powerful planks in Bernie's 2020 platform. He introduces his idea for free public colleges (basically the land grant colleges-- minus MIT and Cornell) and college debt cancellation by pointing out that "just 30 years ago, tuition and fees at a public, four-year university totaled $3,360 per year in today’s dollars. That same degree today costs more than $10,000 per year in tuition and fees and more than $21,000 per year including room and board. Meanwhile, median hourly wages for college graduates have risen by less than $1 since 2001, when adjusted for inflation. The promise of higher pay has not materialized for recent college graduates, who have been taking out more and more in student loans to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of tuition. This has led to a generation of young people unable to start families, buy homes, and follow their dreams. We have failed a generation of our young people... You are not truly free when you graduate college with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. You are not truly free when you cannot pursue your dream of becoming a teacher, environmentalist, journalist or nurse because you cannot make enough money to cover your monthly student loan payments. And you are not truly free when the vast majority of good-paying jobs require a degree that requires taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain. We are going to end the racial and class disparities that persist throughout higher education. We will close these gaps and ensure all Americans, no matter their race, income, zip code, or immigration status receive a high quality education. Not only will we guarantee the right to a good, public education for all-- from childcare and pre-kindergarten through college-- we will free generations of Americans from the outrageous burden of student loans by canceling all existing student debt. When we are in the White House, we will:

Make Public Colleges, Universities, and Trade Schools Free for All

Attending some of the best public colleges and universities was essentially free for students 50 years ago. Now, students are forced to pay upwards of $21,000 each year to attend those same schools.

Every young person, regardless of their family income, the color of their skin, disability, or immigration status should have the opportunity to attend college.

When Bernie is in the White House, he will pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.

Cancel All Existing Student Debt

Today in our country, 45 million people hold some $1.6 trillion in student debt. The average college student in the U.S. graduates with close to $30,000 in student loans and one in six college students will be stuck with over $50,000 in student loan debt after graduation. The reality we face is that more than half of students who enroll in college don’t complete a degree. Millions are leaving school with no degree and thousands of dollars in debt. Nearly forty percent of college students would consider dropping out to avoid incurring more student loan debt. And this isn’t a crisis just for young students and graduates. More than three million older Americans still have student loan debt, and thousands are currently having their Social Security checks garnished to pay them off. Bernie believes this is an unacceptable and untenable situation.

Almost two-thirds of all student debt-- nearly $929 billion as of 2019-- in the U.S. is held by women. One-third of Latino borrowers do not complete their degrees, compared to only one-fourth of white borrowers. 35 percent of Latino student loan borrowers who started college in 2003-2004 defaulted on their loans, compared to only 20 percent of white borrowers. Black students take out loans at a higher rate to pay for school, graduate with more student debt than white counterparts and, because of income disparities, take longer to pay it off while paying more interest. This proposal would cut the racial wealth gap for young Americans by more than half-- from 12:1 to 5:1. Bernie believes our country is morally bound to close the racial wealth divide. In order to do that we are going to cancel all student debt.

Seventy-three percent of the benefits of cancelling all student debt will go to the bottom 80 percent of Americans, who are making less than $127,000 a year. President Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations cost more than $2 trillion, 83 percent of which will end up going to the top 1 percent. Bernie believes that money would be better spent on freeing millions of hardworking people from the burden of student debt,  boosting the economy by $1 trillion over the next ten years, and creating up to 1.5 million new jobs every year. By canceling student debt, we will save the average student loan borrower around $3,000 a year in student loan payments. That money will be freed up to spend on everything from housing to starting a business.

When Bernie is in the White House, he will cancel the entire $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt for the 45 million borrowers who are weighed down by the crushing burden of student debt. This will save around $3,000 a year for the average student loan borrower.





Make College Debt-Free for All

Unbelievably, 45 percent of college students report struggling with hunger, 56 percent report struggling with the cost of housing, and 17 percent say they experienced homelessness. In the richest country in the history of the world, students should not have to starve in order to get an education.

Low-income students who receive Pell Grants graduate with an average of $31,000 in student loan debt-- $4,500 more than their peers who did not receive Pell Grants.

When Bernie is in the White House, he will provide Pell Grants to low-income students to cover the non-tuition and fee costs of school, including: housing, books, supplies, transportation, and other costs of living; require participating states and tribes to cover the full cost of obtaining  a degree for low-income students (normally those with a family income of less than $25,000) by covering any gap that may still exist after we eliminate tuition, fees, and grants; place a cap on student loan interest rates going forward. The federal government shouldn’t make billions of dollars in profit off of student loans while students are drowning in debt. We should invest in young Americans-- not leverage their futures. Today, the average interest rate on undergraduate student loans is more than 5 percent. Under this proposal, we will cap student loan interest rates at 1.88 percent. In addition to eliminating tuition and fees, we will match any additional spending from states and tribes which reduces the cost of attending school at a dollar for dollar rate. This funding goes beyond closing the cost gap-- participating states and tribes could use this money to hire additional faculty, ensure professors get professional development opportunities, and increase students’ access to educational opportunities."

His platform also call for "Triple funding for the Work-Study Program. By tripling funding for this program, we can build valuable career experiences for students that will help them after they graduate.Today, this program provides about $1,760 per year to some 700,000 students. When we are in the White House, we will expand the program to reach at least 2.1 million students-- a 1.4 million student increase. And we will ensure that funding targets schools that have large low-income student enrollment.

Invest in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions

Established as institutions to educate African Americans during segregation, HBCUs continue to fill an important role in providing access to quality higher educational opportunities for African Americans. We must address the persistent racial disparities that still exist in higher education by investing in the institutions that consistently demonstrate the most effective pathway to a degree for African-American students. Black students are nearly 16 percent more likely to graduate from an HBCU in six years than similar black students at predominantly white institutions. We must ensure adequate federal support for these institutions and work to eliminate tuition and fees at private HBCUs and MSIs.

When Bernie is in the White House, he will provide $1.3 billion to private, nonprofit HBCUs and MSIs every year to eliminate or significantly reduce tuition and fees for low-income students. This funding would support some 200 schools which serve at least 35 percent low-income students.

End Equity Gaps in Higher Education Attainment

In the 21st century, a free public education system that goes from kindergarten through high school is no longer good enough. Higher education should be a right for all, not a privilege for the few. According to a recent report, “14.3 percent of people with disabilities (ages 25-34) attained a bachelor’s degree or more, compared to 37.2 percent of their peers without disabilities, reflecting a 22.9 percentage point gap.” The Washington Post reports that you have a 1 in 2 chance of earning an undergraduate degree by age 24 if your family makes above $90,000, but just a 1 in 17 chance to do the same if your family makes less than $35,000. Twenty-three percent of first-generation college students defaulted on their student loans within 12 years.

To address these inequities, we must make a transformative investment in our children, our teachers and our schools and fundamentally rethink the unjust and inequitable funding of our public education system. Part of that is ensuring all our students get the help they need so they are ready for college and receive the support they need when they are in college.

When we are in the White House, we will double funding for the TRIO Programs and increases funding for the GEAR UP Program so more low-income students, students with disabilities, and first-generation students can attend and graduate college with a degree. By increasing our investment in these programs, we will reach 1.5 million students through TRIO programs and more than 100,000 additional students through GEAR UP than the program reaches today.

Tax Wall Street Gambling to Cancel All Student Debt and Pay for College for All

We can guarantee higher education as a right for all and cancel all student debt for an estimated $2.2 trillion. To pay for this, we will impose a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy a decade ago. This Wall Street speculation tax will raise $2.4 trillion over the next ten years.  It works by placing a 0.5 percent tax on stock trades-- 50 cents on every $100 of stock--  a 0.1 percent fee on bond trades, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivative trades.

If Wall Street can be bailed out for several trillion dollars, 45 million Americans can and will be bailed out of the $1.6 trillion burden of student loan debt and we can provide free college for all. Some 40 countries throughout the world have imposed a similar tax, including Britain, South Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil, Germany, France, Switzerland and China.

Guess What! There's More Behind Bernie's College Loan Debt Forgiveness Than Pre-Debate Positioning

The work that Bernie’s economic advisor, Stephanie Kelton, chair of the Stony Brooks economic department, did for Bernie on student debt cancellation last year— along with 3 colleagues— The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt Cancellation is probably too much to expect political journalists to read and grasp… so it’s a lot easier to go along with a narrative about Bernie competing with Elizabeth Warren. We’ll come back to that. First Dr. Kelton, who starts with some basic questions:

More than 44 million Americans are caught in a student debt trap. Collectively, they owe nearly $1.4 trillion on outstanding student loan debt. Research shows that this level of debt hurts the US economy in a variety of ways, holding back everything from small business formation to new home buying, and even marriage and reproduction. It is a problem that policymakers have attempted to mitigate with programs that offer refinancing or partial debt cancellation. But what if something far more ambitious were tried? What if the population were freed from making any future payments on the current stock of outstanding student loan debt? Could it be done, and if so, how? What would it mean for the US economy?

…Student debt cancellation results in positive macroeconomic feedback effects as average households’ net worth and disposable income increase, driving new consumption and investment spending. In short, we find that debt cancellation lifts GDP, decreases the average unemployment rate, and results in little inflationary pressure (all over the 10-year horizon of our simulations), while interest rates increase only modestly. Though the federal budget deficit does increase, state-level budget positions improve as a result of the stronger economy. The use of two models with contrasting long-run theoretical foundations offers a plausible range for each of these effects and demonstrates the robustness of our results.

A one-time policy of student debt cancellation, in which the federal government cancels the loans it holds directly and takes over the financing of privately owned loans on behalf of borrowers, results in the following macroeconomic effects (all dollar values are in real, inflation-adjusted terms, using 2016 as the base year):

• The policy of debt cancellation could boost real GDP by an average of $86 billion to $108 billion per year. Over the 10-year forecast, the policy generates between $861 billion and $1,083 billion in real GDP (2016 dollars).
• Eliminating student debt reduces the average unemployment rate by 0.22 to 0.36 percentage points over the 10-year forecast.
• Peak job creation in the first few years following the elimination of student loan debt adds roughly 1.2 million to 1.5 million new jobs per year.
• The inflationary effects of cancelling the debt are macroeconomically insignificant. In the Fair model simulations, additional inflation peaks at about 0.3 percentage points and turns negative in later years. In the Moody’s model, the effect is even smaller, with the pickup in inflation peaking at a trivial 0.09 percentage points.
• Nominal interest rates rise modestly. In the early years, the Federal Reserve raises target rates 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points; in later years, the increase falls to just 0.2 percentage points. The effect on nominal longer-term interest rates peaks at 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points and declines thereafter, settling at 0.21 to 0.35 percentage points.
• The net budgetary effect for the federal government is modest, with a likely increase in the deficit-to-GDP ratio of 0.65 to 0.75 percentage points per year. Depending on the federal government’s budget position overall, the deficit ratio could rise more modestly, ranging between 0.59 and 0.61 percentage points. However, given that the costs of funding the Department of Education’s student loans have already been incurred (discussed in detail in Section 2), the more relevant estimates for the impacts on the government’s budget position relative to current levels are an annual increase in the deficit ratio of between 0.29 and 0.37 percentage points.
• State budget deficits as a percentage of GDP improve by about 0.11 percentage points during the entire simulation period.
• Research suggests many other positive spillover effects that are not accounted for in these simulations, including increases in small business formation, degree attainment, and household formation, as well as improved access to credit and reduced household vulnerability to business cycle downturns. Thus, our results provide a conservative estimate of the macro effects of student debt liberation.

So how does a typically lazy journalist cover Bernie’s new student debt plan for an audience they would prefer to have it summed up in a paragraph? Jeff Stein gave it a swing for the Washington Post readership. He included lots of superfluous information— like Bernie’s a senator from Vermont, for example, something we all need to know, while leaving out what’s behind the plan. “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT),” he wrote, “will propose on Monday eliminating all $1.6 trillion of student debt held in the United States, a significant escalation of the policy fight in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary two days before the candidates’ first debate in Miami.” That’s all most Post readers need to know; Bernie is escalating a political fight in front of the debate.

Sanders is proposing the federal government pay to wipe clean the student debt held by 45 million Americans— including all private and graduate school debt— as part of a package that also would make public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free.

Sanders is proposing to pay for these plans with a tax on Wall Street his campaign says will raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years, though some tax experts give lower revenue estimates.

Sanders will be joined Monday by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who will introduce legislation in the House to eliminate all student debt in the United States, as well as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has championed legislation to make public universities tuition-free.

Sanders helped popularize demands for tuition-free college during his 2016 presidential campaign run but did less to emphasize solutions for those who had already left school saddled with debt. Since then, liberal Democratic lawmakers have called for increasingly aggressive government solutions for erasing existing student debt, with 2020 candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposing $640 billion in student debt forgiveness and former housing secretary Julián Castro introducing a more modest debt forgiveness plan.

These proposals have faced fierce objections, including from some moderate [at The Post they use the word “moderate” to denote the conservative Republican wing of the Democratic Party] Democrats, for giving taxpayer subsidies to educated Americans who, on average, have higher earnings than those with only a high school degree. [Would it silence them if Bernie also suggested a one-time-only payment of several thousand dollars toeveryione who has no student debt? I suspect not, but they’d find an different excuse to attack him.]

Advocates say the push reflects the growing recognition of the economic harm created by the nation’s soaring student debt burden, particularly on the millennial generation, which ballooned from $90 billion to $1.6 trillion in about two decades, according to federal data.

“This is truly a revolutionary proposal,” said Sanders, who is announcing the plan with the support of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and a handful of other House Democrats. “In a generation hard hit by the Wall Street crash of 2008, it forgives all student debt and ends the absurdity of sentencing an entire generation to a lifetime of debt for the ‘crime’ of getting a college education.”

Sanders is proposing to pay for the legislation with a new tax on financial transactions, including a 0.5 percent tax on stock transactions and a 0.1 percent tax on bonds. Such a levy would curb Wall Street speculation while reducing income inequality, according to a report by the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank, though conservatives warn it would stunt economic growth and investment.

Conservatives and moderate Democrats are likely to raise concerns about these student debt forgiveness plans. They have pointed out that Democratic presidential candidates, including Sanders, have pushed more than a dozen expensive federal projects— including Medicare-for-all, the Green New Deal and large infrastructure improvements— projected to cost substantially more than the $1.5 trillion GOP tax law approved in 2017, at a time of already high deficits.

“The cost will march toward $3 trillion and benefit a lot of wealthy families and future high-earners,” said Brian Riedl, an analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank. “Of all problems requiring a $3 trillion federal expenditure, the college costs of middle- and upper-class college graduates seem lower-priority.”

A fierce debate has raged in left-leaning policy circles as well as over whether canceling student debt offers too much help to families with higher incomes. The top 40 percent of earners would receive about two-thirds of the benefits from Warren’s plan, according to Adam Looney, a former Treasury official under President Barack Obama who is now at the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank.

That number is likely to be higher under Sanders’s plan, given that proposals by Warren and Castro do not call for wiping clean the debt of those earning over six figures. Warren has proposed forgiving up to $50,000 in student debt for those earning under $100,000, or about 42 million people. Under Castro’s plan, borrowers would not have to repay their loans until their income rose above 250 percent of the federal poverty line-- about $64,000 for a family of four-- after which it would be capped.

Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor at Temple University who specializes in higher-education financing, said she had mixed feelings about plans such as the one proposed by Sanders that involve forgiving all student debt.

“There’s a piece of me that has seen how widespread the pain is, including among people you might say are financially fine,” Goldrick-Rab said. “But there’s a piece of me that knows what the pot looks like, and says, ‘That’s not the best use of the money.’”

Other experts say these criticisms miss the mark. If the plans are paid for with higher taxes on affluent Americans, they will ultimately redistribute resources down the income distribution, said Marshall Steinbaum, a former researcher at the Roosevelt Institute who was recently hired as an economics professor at the University of Utah.

Student debt forgiveness would also help stimulate economic growth by freeing borrowers to buy homes and improve their credit, while primarily benefiting racial minorities, according to Steinbaum and researchers at the Levy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Omar, who has student debt, said in a statement that the plan would “unleash billions of dollars in economic growth.”

Additionally, poorer Americans would see the percentage of their income held in debt fall much more dramatically than that of higher earners under the plan, Steinbaum said. Steinbaum has also disputed Looney’s analysis, arguing it ignores people who have so much debt they cannot pay.

The difference in these plans may reflect a wider debate in the Democratic Party over how to tailor government programs.

Sanders has proposed universal government programs whose benefits also go to the rich and do not depend on recipients’ earnings. Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan, for instance, would offer government health insurance to every American regardless of income, a break from Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which aimed to expand insurance primarily to low-income individuals.

Supporters say making government programs also available to the affluent makes them more politically durable, citing the popularity of programs such as libraries and K-12 public education, though critics contend such programs offer help to those who do not need it.

Warren, for instance, has proposed a child-care plan that would make child care free only for those earning up to $51,200, in the case of a family of four.

Her approach also makes her plans much less likely to require tax hikes on middle-class Americans. She has said she can pay for these programs with tax hikes on people with more than $50 million and on corporations with more than $100 million in profits— math that is made easier because her plans cut off those above a certain income bracket. Sanders has embraced higher taxes on the middle class, saying families will benefit overall by seeing other expenses reduced.

Critics are likely to say Sanders’s plans reflect his attempts to distinguish himself from Warren, who has risen in the polls during the past several months of the Democratic primary, sometimes overtaking Sanders’s No. 2 position in polling behind former vice president Joe Biden.

[This is a false narrative that corporate media has bought into. According to the RealClearPolitics polling averages— these are the national numbers:

Biden- 31.9%
Bernie- 15.0%
Warren- 11.9%

The Iowa numbers:

Biden- 25.0%
Bernie- 19.4%
McKinsey Pete- 11.8%
Warren- 9.8%

The New Hampshire numbers:

Biden- 29.7%
Bernie- 16.7%
Warren- 11.0%

The Nevada numbers:

Biden- 31.0%
Bernie- 18.0%
Warren- 14.5%

The South Carolina numbers:

Biden- 41.0%
Bernie- 13.5%
Warren- 12.5%

The California numbers:

Biden- 24.0%
Bernie- 17.5%
Kamala- 15.0%
Warren- 12.5%

The Texas numbers:

Biden- 25.3%
Beto- 17.7%
Bernie- 14.7%
Warren- 10.7%

The Massachusetts numbers:

Biden- 22.5%
Bernie- 16.0%
Warren- 12.0%

OK? Can we dismiss that false narrative now?]

Warren’s student loan plan would entirely clear student debt for more than 75 percent of borrowers. She also has embraced some universal plans, co-sponsoring Sanders’s single-payer legislation.

Like Sanders, Warren has crusaded against rising income inequality and released detailed proposals for taking on Wall Street and expanding government programs.

Sanders’s higher-education plan may reflect other ways he is attempting to stake out the left flank of the primary. For instance, his previous free-college-tuition plan in Congress would eliminate tuition and fees only at four-year public colleges for those making up to $125,000, the result of a compromise he reached with Hillary Clinton after the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sanders previously campaigned on free college tuition, regardless of income, in 2016.

His new plan goes further, calling for public four-year colleges and community colleges to be free for everyone, including tuition and fees. Sanders’s bill includes $1.3 billion a year for low-income students at historically black colleges and universities, and $48 billion per year for eliminating tuition and fees at public schools and universities.

The CNN coverage is even stupider, Ryan Nobles and Gregory Krieg reporting that Bernie “is set to stake out uncharted territory in the Democratic presidential primary, offering up a plan to completely eliminate the student loan debt of every American…The proposal goes further than the plan already unveiled by his Democratic primary rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren's debt relief package was subject to income eligibility levels to determine how much relief the average person would receive— parameters that Warren said were aimed at closing the racial wealth gap. Under the Sanders plan, if you have student debt of any kind it would be canceled the second the legislation is signed into law… With this latest, detailed pitch, Sanders is aiming to solidify his credentials as the most progressive candidate in a field that has largely embraced the priorities he brought to a national audience in 2016. The proposal is sure to invite new criticism from Democratic moderates, who have sought to cast themselves as pragmatic alternatives to Sanders' efforts to fundamentally remake the country's economic system. On the stump and in interviews, Sanders has long spoken about finding ways to relieve the burden of student debt, but this this is his most specific plan to date. He teased the announcement during an event in South Carolina on Saturday night… The plan is part of a more comprehensive "college for all" program that Sanders has already released in pieces and includes free tuition at all four-year public colleges and universities, as well as community colleges. The broader proposal also includes subsidies to reduce the cost of tuition and fees for low income students at private colleges that historically serve underrepresented communities.”

I asked a whole batch of congressional candidates and the first one to get back to me was Dary Rezvani, a Central Valley progressive running for the seat Devin Nunes occupies. Dary told me that this is his favorite topic for three reasons:

1. I had student loans; not to brag but paid them completely off two weeks ago.
2. Republicans seem to love the idea that they are more economically savvy when in reality this move would stimulate the economy more than any trickle down bullshit ever could.
3. Corporate liberals say "but I had to pay;” Please just stfu. 

Education is the foundation of society. The fact that we privatized our student loan system once again shows that politicians have no idea what they are doing. It is literally the basis of a publicly traded company to put shareholder interests first. In order to do that you must maximize profit. How could anyone be so stupid to think that you could have a socially successful system by privatizing the funding to further your critical thinking ability?

Once again it is a direct attack on the arts and humanities studies. We see the rhetoric today, "well maybe if you weren't an art major then you'd have a job." Uhhhh yea maybe but then how the hell would history or culture ever be passed on? We can even touch on how business is taught in the USA, it is constantly to maximize profit. The theory of business is taught that they should exist in perpetuity which when a business fails to innovate they cut costs in order to meet that standard. The highest costs? People. Which is why you see R&D is the first area that is cut during corporate mergers. These companies see them as "add ons" instead of fundamental parts of their business. The idea is to either increase revenue or increase profit margin. When you stop coming up with new ideas then the only way to stay viable is to cut costs to maintain a profit margin. It's all a ratio.

Student loans are one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated by the United States. Whether it be the different "editions" of the exact same textbook that your professors "require" you to buy or the companies like Nelnet only want their money and they will do whatever they have to to get it. They lie to people who call in order to collect more money and set them up with payment plans that make their lives more difficult.

Wiping all of the student debt would adversely impact like 3 companies that shouldn't exist to begin with and it would help millions of Americans. It is time for our government to get off its knees with privatization and corporations. Imagine millions of people with an extra $200-$900 in their pocket, EVERY MONTH. Or would that be too scary for banks because then people wouldn't have to put everything on their credit cards?

Everyone should have the opportunity regardless of financial standing to attend a university if for no other reason, to interact with people from various walks of life. You would be surprised to learn what you don't know after these interactions.

Centrists who want to "take it easy" on the debt forgiveness can just get out of the race now. This isn't their daddy's Democratic Party. This is my generation’s Democratic Party and we have no room for minced words or weak messages.



”You have to act as if it is possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do so all of the time.”
- Angela Davis

Briana Urbina is a young progressive attorney running for the seat occupied by corrupt establishment hack Steny Hoyer. Moments ago, she that me that "many Marylanders have the great privilege of attending the excellent universities in the 5th District and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of us end up leaving our universities with not only excellent degrees, but with crippling student loan debt. Instead of a bright, limitless future with their hard-earned education and credentials, many students are faced with depressed wages and increased costs of living in the place we call home. It’s a vicious cycle for our nation to emphasize the importance of higher education, yet saddle students with high interest rates and exorbitant debt to achieve it. I am interested in seeing the details regarding how Senator Sander’s bill can achieve total alleviation of existing student loan debt, and fully support the end goal of wiping away this outrageous financial burden to aid struggling students and families."





Shaniyat Chowdhury, the progressive candidate taking on corrupt conservative New Dem Gregory Meeks in southeast Queens, has a similar perspective and summed it up like this: “Wall Street executives were not held accountable for  the 2008 financial crisis. Millennials like myself had to carry their burden for years. Any opposition to Sen. Sanders’ legislation, from the GOP and conservative Democrats, will only continue the division between the rich and poor. We work hard, but we need financial freedom to participate in the economy for years to come.”

Like Shaniyat, Eva Putzova is in a primary battle with a conservative Democrat, in her case "ex"-Republican Blue Dog Tom O’Halleran, an austerity proponent. "When I finished my master's degree," she told me this morning, "I had no college debt because college was and still is publicly funded in Slovakia. I was free to start my life without the financial burden and stress that so many young Americans face. But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, today's grandparents enjoyed college education that was nearly free. If you went to one of the state universities in Arizona in 1969, you could pay for your annual tuition by working a minimum wage job for one month over the summer. Today, to afford the same, you have to work for nearly seven months. If we could bail out Wall Street after the 2008 crash, we can bail out ordinary citizens with their college debt and tax Wall Street to ensure every young person in this country can have what their grandparents had-- an affordable college degree."


If Kathy Ellis is elected to Congress from southeast Missouri she will, represent the reddest district held by a progressive Democrat in recent history. It’s probably going to either take a miracle or the folks who live their finding out that their right-wing, homophobic incumbent, Jason Smith, is a dishonest, conflicted closet case picking up young men on GRINDR. But none of that is what Kathy is thinking about. Student debt reduction is though. “Students,” she just told me, “can’t get ahead. For students in rural areas, this problem is made worse by a lack of well-paying job opportunities in the area. We need to cancel student debt and provide a path to debt-free college. I appreciate Senator Sanders and others in Congress bringing this issue to the front and for proposing a solution to a massive problem hurting our communities.”

Mike Siegel is also in a terribly gerrymandered red district— but he nearly won it in 2018 and probably will next year. “Canceling college debt will be a tremendous stimulus to the US economy,” he told me today. “Millions of Americans will be able to start businesses, take jobs they want, improve their mental and physical health, support their families, and live more productive and fulfilling lives. Unlike the tax cuts for the wealthy, which went toward stock buybacks and increased corporate profits, this will be a true investment in the people.”





UPDATE: Michael Owens Will Be Part Of The Solution

Dr. Michael Owens is running for a congressional seat in the suburbs south and southeast of Atlanta, currently wasted by a corrupt Blue Dog, David Scott. While Scott works with Republicans against the best interests of his own constituents, Owens is already figuring out what he can do to help Georgians if he wins the primary. “Student loan debt,” he told me this afternoon, “is creating a financial crisis for over 45 million Americans. Reps. Omar and Jayapal have introduced legislation that would completely eliminate all current student debt that has increased from $90 billion to $1.6 trillion in two decades. Other plans, including one by Senator Elizabeth Warren have offered up other solutions to the current debt crisis that would reduce or modify student debt burdens.”

This has opened up a critical debate on which path is most viable to giving relief to those millions of hard working families from a crushing financial burden. The one thing there seems to be consensus on is that a solution can and must be found.

I am lucky enough to hold a  masters and a doctorate degree. Yet, I am still paying off my student loans from undergrad degree when I had to take out student loans, in addition, to working at the Vet Center to pay for my food, transportation and clothes while still a teenager.

With that first hand knowledge of how student debt can be a struggle, my campaign for Congress is about representing the people of the 13th Congressional district who are dealing with this issues like this as well.  As congressman, I will jump into debates like this head first and working hard to find the solution that will improve the most lives. Here is what I know, every dollar we put back into the pockets of working people is a dollar that can be put towards the prosperity of their families. Interest debt is crippling to in a time when wages are stagnant and entry-level salaries for college graduates are low.

This debate matters a great deal to the people of the 13th CD. Being a minority-majority district with many immigrants and first time college students we need a Congressman that will not sit back and remain quiet while receiving thousands of dollars from the same financial institutions that are holding thousands of constituents in a financial  bind. Tens of thousands of our neighbors, would be uplifted from any of the policies being debated. I am running for congress because we need more people there putting the needs of the people before greedy corporations.

Candidate Swalwell?

Pete Stark was one of Congress' most liberal members. He beat another Democrat in a 1972 primary, claiming the incumbent had been in Congress "too long" and was then challenged-- and beaten-- himself on the same grounds 40 years later (2012). The victor in that tight race went to a moderate Democrat, Eric Swalwell, then a first-term member of the Dublin city council. Swalwell hadn't been born when Stark was first elected to Congress. You can't really blame him for his boss, but Swalwell's first federal job was as a staffer for one of the worst Democrats to ever serve in Congress from California, deceitful, corrupt and reactionary New Dem Ellen Tauscher. Stark was too senile to debate Swalwell or mount a viable campaign, while Swalwell's campaign was pretty brilliant. He beat Stark 120,388 (52.1%) to 110,646 (47.9%), beating him in both the Alameda County and Contra Costa parts of the district.

Until recently, Swalwell was just another relatively unaccomplished congressional backbencher-- not a Blue Dog, not a New Dem, not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. ProgressivePunch gives him a "D" grade, the least progressive of the 53 California congressman other than the 16 with "F" ratings-- like Jim Costa, Scott Peters, Raul Ruiz, Ami Bera and Lou Correa from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Unlike any of them, though, Swalwell, turned out to be one of the moderates who signed on as an original sponsor of AOC's Green New Deal resolution.

Most Americans-- including most Californians-- only know him as a character on the MSNBC prime time flight, particularly on the Rachel Maddow Show, where he took off as a replacement for the over-used Adam Schiff character. He's made himself available to CNN and Fox a lot more than most members of Congress. He's a big-time Trump detractor, which thrills many Democrats who know little else about Swalwell. He's on two key committees that play right into Maddow's Putin-Gate theme, Intelligence and Judiciary. Straight-talking and telegenic-- and a brand new dad-- Swalwell was a TV hit. His twitter following ballooned from basically nothing to nearly half a million followers. But is that enough to base a presidential run on?



The latest New Hampshire poll I saw showed him at... well... Kirsten Gillibrand, John Delaney, Mayor Pete and Sherrod Brown are all at 1% and Tulsi and Julian are at zero and Swalwell is... below that. But he's in New Hampshire now, looking for an audience to talk to. (Aren't there important votes in the House this week?)

Anyway, Naomi Lim noted in an unfortunate Washington Examiner piece, Eric Swalwell tells New Hampshire he would offer a 'college bargain,' not free college a really bad approach. Imagine the colonists debating whether or not to declare independence. Would Swalwell have been sitting with Status Quo Joe Biden insisting that they should send King George another letter instead, asking for a reduction in the tax on tea? Or would he have been arguing that we needed to compromise on the Bill of Rights-- "why 10 amendments? how about if we do just 4?" I bet he would have suggested an anti-whipping bill instead of emancipation for the slaves. Who could oppose an anti-whipping bill? Well... this guy I guess, a perfect example of what the Republican Party has turned into-- and he sure hates Eric Swalwell! 10 points for Eric!

Lim reported that he was testing his "stump speech on Monday in New Hampshire, diverging slightly from other Democratic contenders by not promising free college tuition. He sounds like... Hillary, the only candidate in the known universe who could have lost to Trump.

"I would offer a college bargain," Swalwell said at the Politics & Eggs breakfast speaker series. "If you work through college, through work-study, and you come out [and] through part-time, volunteer service hours, lift up and help out a community in need, and still do your full-time job ... you can get a debt-free education. If you work for college, college should work for you in America. It's not free college, it's a bargain."

His three-prong proposal includes dropping the federal interest rate slapped on loans to 0 percent, allowing graduates to refinance or renegotiate for more competitive rates, and permitting employers to contribute to their employee's student debt tax-free while letting those employees receive the assistance without being taxed themselves.

“Go big, be bold, do good," Swalwell said repeatedly, signaling a potential campaign slogan.

But Swalwell on Monday remained mum about his 2020 plans when asked whether he would announce his intentions soon.

The California Democrat's comments, made in a state where graduates are burdened with some of the highest student loan debt in the country, come after fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota declined to support the roll-out of free four-year college for students if she won the party's nomination next year.

"If I was a magic genie and could give that to everyone and we could afford it, I would," Klobuchar said this month during a CNN town hall. "I'm just trying to find a mix of incentives and make sure kids that are in need-- that's why I talked about expanding Pell Grants-- can go to college and be able to afford it, and make sure that people that can afford it are able to pay."

The progressive proposal is to make public colleges free again-- not Harvard and Yale. We already paid for those colleges with our tax dollars and they were free or nearly free. I went to one of them in the late 1960s, before Swalwell was born. He should read more about it before he knocks it as an impossible dream. "Go big, be bold, do good" is a nice slogan-- as long as there's something behind it. The slogan matches up better with the platforms proposed by Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and Marianne Williamson.