What Will It Take For You To Vote For Status Quo Joe?

If you follow this blog, you know I detest Biden and have no intention of voting for him. I didn't just discover him when Obama decided he needed a conservative white guy to balance his ticket; I've followed Biden-- and his putrid record-- since the 1970s when he jumped into politics as a Republican who switched to become a conservative Democrat and whose first and signature issue was racism. He was anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-working class and vehemently and loudly anti-progressive... for over three decades.

Yesterday I was on Nicole Sandler's radio show and we discussed what it would take for me to vote for Biden. It would take a lot. But, literally, right after the show, I saw this report from CBS News: Biden adopts parts of Sanders' policies: lowering Medicare age and forgiving some college debt. Bo Erickson reported that "A day after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primary race, Joe Biden, the party's likely  nominee, has already implemented two elements of the Democratic socialist's agenda and credited Sanders' energetic movement with the change. 'Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas, and I'm proud to adopt them as part of my campaign at this critical moment in responding to the coronavirus crisis,' Biden stated in a release."

There's some good policy that someone wrote for Biden, although it contradicts his decades-long record. Before I read it, I started arguing with Washington Post reporter Greg Sargent, who is a friend and who had just done a column about it: Biden Makes His First Big Overture To Sanders Voters. Greg and this co-writer, Paul Waldman, were impressed.

It's an OK start-- not enough to make me vote for him, but enough to get my attention and imagine something I thought was unimaginable, namely that I might be persuaded to vote for him. We're not there yet, not even close. But I would like to get there. I really would. Here's the policy part of his statement:

Lowering the Medicare Eligibility Age to 60

I have directed my team to develop a plan to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60.

Under this concept, Americans would have access, if they choose, to Medicare when they turn 60, instead of when they turn 65. Medicare benefits would be provided to them as they are to current Medicare recipients. This would make Medicare available to a set of Americans who work hard and retire before they turn 65, or who would prefer to leave their employer plans, the public option, or other plans they access through the Affordable Care Act before they retire. It reflects the reality that, even after the current crisis ends, older Americans are likely to find it difficult to secure jobs.

Of course, those who prefer to remain on their employer plans would be permitted to do so, and employers would have to comply with non-discrimination laws and would be prohibited from excluding older workers from coverage or otherwise try to push them out of their plans. And the Biden Medicare-like public option-- as well as other subsidized private plans available to individuals through the Affordable Care Act-- would remain available.

Any new Federal cost associated with this option would be financed out of general revenues to protect the Medicare Trust Fund.

Forgiving student debt for low-income and middle class individuals who have attended public colleges and universities

I’ve also directed my team to develop a plan to forgive federal student debt relating to the cost of tuition currently held by low-income and middle-class people for undergraduate public colleges and universities, as well as private Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and private, underfunded Minority-Serving Institution (MSIs).

The concept I’m announcing today will align my student debt relief proposal with my forward-looking college tuition proposal. Under this plan, I propose to forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000, with appropriate phase-outs to avoid a cliff. The federal government would pay the monthly payment in lieu of the borrower until the forgivable portion of the loan was paid off. This benefit would also apply to individuals holding federal student loans for tuition from private HBCUs and MSIs.

This proposal would be in addition to my existing student debt proposals:

• Immediately cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person, as proposed by Senator Warren in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
• Those earning less than $25,000 per year will not have to make monthly payments and will accrue no interest
• Those earning more than $25,000 per year will pay no more than 5% of discretionary income toward payments
• After 20 years, the remainder of federal student loans will be forgiven without any tax burden
• Those who participate in public service will be eligible for additional federal loan forgiveness, including $10,000 per year of forgiveness for up to five years.

I would finance this new student debt proposal by repealing the high-income “excess business losses” tax cut in the CARES Act. That tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans and is unnecessary for addressing the current COVID-19 economic relief efforts.

60 is just plain niggardly and at the very least he should agree to lower the starting age to 55. He's dragging his damn feet on this. He indicates he will back a public option which is better than nothing, even if it isn't Medicare for All, which is something he will never agree to. Had he also included a statement about Medicare covering teeth, ears and eyes and something strong about holding down drug prices, he probably would have gained a lot more support.

The student debt forgiveness policy is a good step in the right direction, and likely all we can expect from this life-long conservative, establishment hack. He certainly owes us more... but it's something-- and at a moment he could have just given the middle finger.

Why Did College Student Voter Participation DOUBLE In 2018? Was It More Than Just Hatred Of Trump?

Thursday, we discussed New Mexico's plan to fully fund tuition in public colleges and universities for all its students. That's delivering-- something Pelosi and her pathetic leadership team doesn't understand in any way shape or form. Yesterday, Tufts University released a report about student participation in the 2018 election cycle. It doubled-- and it helped Democrats recapture the House and elect does of new members. Pelosi and her team need to understand that these woke students did not vote to further the career trajectories of a bunch of corrupt establishment Democrats. And if they don't start delivering, these students will not become part of any lasting Democratic Party coalition.

In a discussion of the Israeli elections I had today with one progressive congressman, he noted that "the standard liberal platform of better healthcare, lower housing costs, higher pension payments, better relations with the Palestinians, etc. (Labor/Meretz) went absolutely nowhere" and that "the socialist parties in Europe are getting absolutely clobbered." When I asked him why, he said, among other things, that "when the socialist parties actually are in power, they don’t do shit for people, the most recent case being France under Hollande, whose approval rating ended at 22%."

I reminded him of how some members of Congress, himself included, do pass legislation of great value to working families. I asked if it is reasonable to expect candidates running on platforms that will make peoples' live tangibly better to follow through. He said Bernie's record-- having passed more legislation that any other member when he was in the House is a good sign he and reminded me that Elizabeth Warren-- albeit before she was a senator-- created the CFPB and got it through Congress and signed by the president and "in the Senate, she made her mark by creating, thoughtful, sound legislation that was never going to go anywhere, but still represented what the Democrats ought to do when they return to power."

In her introduction to the Tufts report, Nancy Thomas, Director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, wrote that "In the 2018 midterm elections, the average student voting rate at U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled from the last midterm elections, jumping from 19% in 2014 to 40% in 2018. The fact that student voting rates increased is no surprise since, according to the U.S. Election Project’s analysis, voting rates among all Americans increased 13.6 percentage points. What is surprising is that college and university student voting rose a remarkable 21 percentage points. Perhaps now is a good time to stop focusing on why college students don’t vote and start understanding why they do vote."

The Climate Crisis is driving a great deal of student activism and electoral participation-- as are proposals for debt-free and tuition-free college. I asked some of the congressional candidates what they are finding when they are out talking with younger voters. "Looking back over our history," said Jason Butler, the progressive Democrat running against George Holding (R) in northeast North Carolina, "young adults have always been critical in pushing political dialogue but now I sense an even deeper urgency. As I talk to high school and college students I am struck with the passion in their voice and their willingness to act. Specifically, the top two issues I consistently hear are climate change and an assault weapons ban. And this makes sense as these are issues that affect them directly. It is a common saying that “all politics is local” and this is ever-the-case with young adults when it comes to these two issues. They are living through mass shootings and must regularly endure “active shooter drills.” And furthermore, they realize that they have the most at stake when it comes to climate change. Yes, we need to listen to them and be willing to be led by them because they are not afraid to blaze a new pathway in our political discourse. From the Climate Strike this Friday to the March for Our Lives Movement - young adults are changing politics for the good. I will continue to support their leadership and vision for a better society."

Kara Eastman's daughter just went off to college and Kara, running for Congress in a blue-trending Omaha district talks to college students out on the hustings all the time. They are likely to help her replace backward Republican Donald J. Bacon, a complete Trump patsy. "College-age students tell me they are excited to vote for someone who does not talk down to them and who speaks about the things they care about," Kara told me today. "I recently attended a University of Nebraska Omaha and Creighton University collaborative event where I talked to many students. They voiced their concerns for the environment with a particular focus on pollution. A few also said they were happy to see that I was not taking corporate PAC donations as they are tired of the corrupt political system. As a campaign, we include college students as interns, volunteers, advisors and staff because we know that their voices are so important to the rising electorate."

Progressive congressional candidate Kathy Ellis was in L.A. for a wedding yesterday and we sat down for dinner. She told me that young people in southeast Missouri "are fed up with the current situation, and rightfully so. They graduate college with enormous amounts of debt and dwindling opportunities for well-paying jobs. For young people in my district, the situation is even more dire: with the shrinking of our local job market, young people who can attend school are forced to move elsewhere to pay off their debt. They want debt-free college; a living wage; better, more affordable healthcare; and opportunities to move forward in society. I couldn't agree with them more, and I proud to be building a campaign team of almost entirely young people."

Student Debt Is A Bad Topic For Status Quo Joe

Bernie has been driving the narrative on student debt, and along with Elizabeth Warren, forcing the other candidates to take positions they're not entirely comfortable with. Biden, for example, would prefer the whole topic never come up at all. He's an actual Republican-grade villain in the world of student debt. With Biden's support in the African-American community finally starting to evaporate, student debt (currently $1.5 trillion) forgiveness and free college isn't something he can avoid talking about for much longer.

This morning, Business Insider published a piece that is probably giving Biden and his staffers acid reflux. The short version is that Bernie and Warren are looking at the student-debt crisis as an opportunity to address racial inequality, not a topic Biden sees as an opportunity, just a nightmare. Bernie and Warren have already "released plans that would eliminate the debt entirely. Their campaigns have said canceling student debt would help black and brown families much more than white ones." That's not something anyone would ever expect to hear from Status Quo Joe.

The crisis has hit minority communities worse than white families on average. Black graduates default on their loans (meaning they do not make a payment within 270 days) at five times the rate of white graduates, and graduates from historically black colleges have 32% more debt than other students.

While black household wealth has long been lower than that of white families, canceling student debt could narrow the divide. An analysis by the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank based in New York, found that white households headed by people between the ages of 25 and 40 have 12 times the amount of wealth on average than black households.

Yet without student debt, the ratio shrinks to just five times the amount of wealth-- although as this chart shows, it still remains quite wide:

“Canceling student debt for black households matters more for their net worth than for white households,” Marshall Steinbaum, one of the study’s authors, said in an interview with Business Insider.

Steinbaum used data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, which is conducted by the Federal Reserve. The study focused on the median wealth of households headed by black and white people aged 25 to 40.

Currently, black college grads from four-year schools take on $7,400 more in loans than white students. Black workers take on higher debt in part due to discrimination in the workplace, Steinbaum said. Black college graduates are more likely to face discrimination, which includes “being treated unfairly in hiring, pay, or promotion,” than those without degrees, according to the Pew Research Center.

Because of the larger amount of student debt taken on, even black college grads working high-paying jobs have an average net worth that’s much lower than white families. Canceling student debt, therefore, could bring the median net worth between the two demographics much closer.

It Costs A Lot Less To Forgive All Student Debt Than It Does To Give The Wealthy Another Tax Cut

The post-debate Morning Consult poll shook up the Democratic primary quite a bit— at least for Kamala Harris. She surged into 3rd place behind Biden and Bernie and tied with Elizabeth Warren, after beating up on Biden in a way that seemed effective for many in the audience. She gained 6 points and Biden lost 5. In fact, everyone in the top 5 lost ground, except Kamala and Bernie.

• Biden- 33% (-5)
• Bernie- 19% (flat)
• Warren- 12% (-1)
• Kamala- 12% (+6)
• Pete- 6% (-1)

That polling surge for Kamala was reflected in her campaign's fundraising efforts as well. She raised around $2.5 million since the debate. 

While the corporate media focuses on all the superficial anti-Bernie crap it can muster, his ideas continue to dominate the Democratic narrative and move the party closer and closer to being a working peoples’ party again, something that was killed by both Jimmy Carter and especially Bill Clinton. Mona Chalabi, reporting for The Guardian, emphasized how the college debt forgiveness plan that Bernie introduced in the Senate— with a companion bill by AOC in the House— costs less than the Republican tax cut for the wealthy. “A 2016 plan for free college tuition,” wrote Chalabi, “didn’t go far enough for Bernie Sanders. In this election cycle, the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination is promising to forgive all outstanding student loan debt. Although Congress has the legal power to write off such debts, voters might be skeptical about the government’s financial power to do so. In 2006, total student loan debt stood at $481 billion Since then, total student loan debt has more than tripled, now standing at $1.6 trillion.”

A counter-argument put forward by politicians like Sanders and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that Republican tax cuts have cost the government more money than would student loan forgiveness.

These claims are correct.

Estimates of the cost of the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 vary. But the most recent and reliable numbers come from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which is the federal agency whose job it is to provide budget information to Congress.

This year, the CBO estimated that the new tax law would add $2.3 trillion to national debt by 2028. Those losses would partly be offset by economic growth of about $461 billion meaning that overall, the tax cuts would cost the country $1.9 trillion.

Without policy change, the US student loan debt crisis is projected to keep growing. Each minute, approximately $157,000 of student loan debt is repaid. But in the same minute, according to data from the Federal Reserve, $191,000 of new debt is borrowed.

And then there's the cost to Americans of Trump's tariffs/tax increases on average working families. I haven't heard and fiscal conservatives screeching about "how you going to pay for it," have you? Watch former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich explain how this sleight of hand works:

Would You Vote For A 21st Century Economic Bill Of Rights?

If you vote for Bernie you’re voting for the man— for his vision, honesty, integrity, good intentions and ability— at least as much s you’re voting for his specific programs. One of those programs, though, sums up what he wants to do to change the country inn a fundamental way— the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights. The idea is to establish, once and for all that every American, regardless of his or her income in entitled to:

• The right to a decent job that pays a living wage
• The right to quality health care
• The right to a complete education
• The right to affordable housing
• The right to a clean environment
• The right to a secure retirement

When he explained how to bring about these goals he didn’t— Trump like— say “only I can…” He said the exact opposite. “The only way we achieve these goals is through a political revolution— where millions of people get involved in the political process and reclaim our democracy by having the courage to take on the powerful corporate interests whose greed is destroying the social and economic fabric of our country. At the end of the day, the one percent may have enormous wealth and power, but they are just the one percent. When the 99 percent stand together, we can transform society… It is time for the American people to stand up and fight for their right to freedom, human dignity and security. This is the core of what my politics is all about.”

See that third point? Take a look at what Bernie had to say about it yesterday:

I Believe Trump When He Says He Wants To Run Against Biden

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks Biden would make a miserable 2020 candidate and an even worse president-- not worse than Trump, worse as a president than as a candidate. Let me just sit back and revel in Alex Shephard's piece for the New Republic about someone who shouldn't be the next nominee for president: This Is As Good As It Gets for Joe Biden. Shephard's first point is one people who are concerned about Biden's high polling numbers need to keep in mind: "He's among the most popular politicians in America. So was Hillary Clinton before her 2016 campaign for president."

He wants to run as, in the primary, the centrist alternative to Bernie. He thinks balancing the ticket means another centrist who's much younger than his sickly 76 years. So he's thinking of Beto. How about a woman? Maybe a person of color? Maybe a progressive? All things Biden is not. But, as Shephard writes, "Biden is the early frontrunner for obvious reasons. He served for eight years as the vice president of Barack Obama, the most popular figure in Democratic politics, and did so with an avuncular charm that was once seen as a political liability, but has aged well under a crass president... But these benefits have significant drawbacks, all of which will begin to appear once Biden actually starts running for president, which he is expected to do. Hillary Clinton, after all, was in a very similar position in advance of the 2016 contest, having enjoyed a surge in popularity from her successful stint as President Obama’s secretary of state through her retirement from public office. In 2013, polling suggested she was the most popular politician in America. But reentering politics swiftly changed that: Her favorability plummeted after she announced her race for president in 2015... We may already have hit peak Biden, and it’s all downhill from here."

Biden’s public image has been bolstered by his distance from public life. Even as vice president, he largely kept his hands clean of everyday politics in Washington. If Obama was seen as the brain of the administration, Biden was its heart and soul: an emotional man of the people, simultaneously macho and unafraid to cry in public, who famously pressured Obama (albeit accidentally) into supporting gay marriage. That perception has only grown in his retirement, as Trump’s rise has fueled a nostalgia for more decent times in American politics.

But if Biden runs, his past will be raked over—and his political record looks increasingly checkered in today’s light.

Biden shamefully failed to protect Anita Hill after she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991. He refused to call corroborating witnesses and did nothing to block disgusting personal attacks from Republicans. This was already seen as a weakness in the #MeToo era, but has become even more damaging after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. (Biden has made things worse by failing to apologize to Hill.) Republicans, particularly Trump, will make much of Biden’s handsiness, but his treatment of Hill is by far his biggest liability.

Biden’s legislative record also contains a series of blights. As a representative of Delaware, one of America’s most corrupt states, Biden is notoriously cosy with financial interests. He spent years advocating for a law that made it significantly more difficult for consumers to declare bankruptcy, before it finally passed in 2005. Elizabeth Warren called it an “awful bill” and support for it likely hurt Hillary Clinton when she ran for president in 2016. Like Clinton, Biden supported the Iraq War and the 1994 crime bill, which made mass incarceration significantly worse. Unlike Clinton, Biden still defends the crime bill, which he praised in his 2017 memoir, Promise Me, Dad. If critics were to dig even further into Biden’s past, they would find that he went to great efforts to suppress busing and other school integration efforts and was against reproductive rights before he was in favor of them.

Biden, if he runs, undoubtedly will argue that he is the only Democrat who can truly connect with the white, blue-collar voters who have fled the party in recent years. He has always reveled in the perception that he’s an authentic politician who understands the so-called common man in ways that his colleagues do not. Even one of his greatest political weaknesses-- his penchant for gaffes-- can be favorably spun: He’s a guy who says what he thinks, and that worked out pretty well for Trump, didn’t it?

...[I]n a primary that may revolve around Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, Biden’s obvious centrism and voting record will be liabilities that his off-the-cuff style may make worse-- it’s easy to imagine the punchy, impulsive Biden doubling down when he should be recanting. At the same time, reminders of Biden’s past stances and behavior will damage the kindly Uncle Joe image he’s cultivated over the past decade.

A Biden candidacy, like Clinton’s, would serve as a reminder of the many flaws of a party establishment that an increasing number of Democrats would like to overthrow (or at least overhaul).

Jacob Weinding gives Biden a much harder time. "Much of American liberalism," he explained, "has undertaken a serious introspection in the wake of the most embarrassing election loss in human history, and in the 2017 and 2018 elections, liberals have demonstrated the potential to both bring in a very wide swath of voters and more importantly, do very big things. For example, no one knew what the Green New Deal was a few weeks ago (the most ambitious policy proposal of millennials’ lifetimes), and now it has the endorsement of thirty forty-one House Democrats and four in the Senate as of this writing, thanks to both a sincere grassroots push and new blood in Congress challenging the corrupt and oil-laden status quo. The lesson from 2016 for Democrats is this: losing to Donald freaking Trump should lead to challenging some of your longtime beliefs and assumptions. Which brings me to Joe Biden."

Joe Biden represents the past, and for his sake, he should remain there.

We remember Biden for his affability and transparent humanity during the Obama years, but here’s a fun fact: he was also one of the most powerful people in the country during his 36-year tenure as a senator from Delaware, and this is where my confidence that he will not win in 2020 comes in... Over his 36-year tenure as one of America’s most powerful men.

...Joe Biden's 1994 Crime bill is a stain on this nation and if he wants to wear it as a badge of honor, then he will find Michael “Stop and Frisk” Bloomberg credibly running to his left in the Democratic primary. This is far from the only policy where Biden finds himself sitting on the far-right flank of the Democratic Party (or more accurately, in mainstream Republicanism).

...Biden voted yes on the 1998 GOP budget that began to put the finishing touches on completely unchaining Wall Street from the constraints the government put it in post-Great Depression, and he voted along with tons of other Clintonian Democrats in 1999 to destroy Glass-Steagall-- which was one of the first reforms we passed in the wake of the Great Depression (it established a firewall between investment and commercial banking, meaning that your deposits can't be used for bankers' gambling-- which is also the “too-long, didn't read” explanation of the 2008 crisis).

...[I]n 1996, Biden joined 83 other senators in voting for the Defense of Marriage Act (that was later ruled unconstitutional), which allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The 1990s weren't some aberration in Biden's career either. He has a long-standing record of taking what can only be described as Republican positions. In 1975, Biden said that busing to reduce school integration was “the single most devastating issue that could occur to Delaware.” He even echoed famed segregationist, George Wallace, when he kept repeating the bullshit phrase “forced busing,” to stump for an anti-desegregation amendment in 1974.

In 2001, Biden voted to loosen restrictions on the government's ability to tap your phone. NARAL gave him a mixed record on the totality of his votes pertaining to abortion. Biden even voted for George W. Bush's failed No Child Left Behind Act (and yet again, later said that he regretted the vote). Over and over and over again, we find votes in Biden's past that he has either apologized for or would likely have to apologize for in order to win the Democratic nomination in 2020.

...Biden will not win because he is on paper, the most conservative choice the Democrats will have to choose from. Folks like Michael Bloomberg and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz are ideologically to the right of modern-day Joe Biden, but as his tone-deaf response to his monstrous crime bill demonstrated, Biden will either have to largely defend an unpopular conservative congressional record, or repudiate much of his legacy given that almost everyone will be running to his left. Either way, “I swear I'm different now!” isn't exactly a coherent and inspiring message that will break through in a crowded field with an electorate that is getting more liberal by the day. Biden is currently leading in the polls because he's the only person in the Democratic Party outside Bernie Sanders who has any broad name recognition.

Biden represents the past because he helped to create the past, and we are in our present malaise thanks to the past decisions made by powerful men like Joe Biden. Bill Clinton’s presidency was not liberal, and Joe Biden endorsed multiple Clinton-backed policies that he now claims were bad decisions. Policy should rule above all, and it’s difficult to see how Biden would dramatically deviate from his longstanding Republican-esque positions, especially when articles encouraging him to run for president (with Mitt Romney!?!?) pop up in Politico, written by folks like these:

Juleanna Glover has worked as an adviser for several Republican politicians, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani and advised the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Jeb Bush. She is on the Biden Institute Policy Advisory Board.

Not everything that Biden did as a senator was bad-- you can parse through his votes and find plenty of good-- but his overall record is simply not liberal. The fact that he still defends his brutal crime bill even as he backs down on other votes serves as proof that he simply does not understand the systemic injustices built in to this country, and he adheres to a worldview which has proven itself insufficient to addressing the challenges we face. Biden’s 2016 quote asserting that his bill, which constructed a ton of prisons, has nothing to do with systemic racism is frankly, disqualifying.

...Biden is a relic of a bygone conservative era, and if he cares about his legacy, he should not run for president in 2020. His record in the senate will move back into the forefront of people’s minds thanks to the efforts of the Democratic field, while his symbolic power as Vice President will fade into the background of our collective memory. The best thing that Joe Biden could do to protect his legacy is to not run for president-- keeping his reputation as “Uncle Joe,” instead of running and becoming the Democrats’ version of Jeb!

A friend of mine just insisted I read an old story (2015) about how a young Joe Biden turned liberals against integration. I don't have the stomach for it. Who wants to proceed from this: "Forty years ago, a contentious battle over racial justice gripped Capitol Hill, pitting the nation’s lone African-American senator against the man who would one day become Barack Obama’s vice president. The issue was school busing, a plan to transport white and black students out of their neighborhoods to better integrate schools-- and at the time the most explosive issue on the national agenda. Ed Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican, was the first black senator ever to be popularly elected; Joe Biden was a freshman Democratic senator from Delaware. By 1975, both had compiled liberal voting records. But that year, Biden sided with conservatives and sponsored a major anti-busing amendment. The fierce debate that followed not only fractured the Senate’s bloc of liberals, it also signified a more wide-ranging political phenomenon: As white voters around the country-- especially in the North-- objected to sweeping desegregation plans then coming into practice, liberal leaders retreated from robust integration policies."

I lived through it and it is part of the fabric that turned me against Biden from when I was still in my 20s. Nothing he's done since then has changed my mind about him either.

On The Trump Regime's Hostility To Education And Social Mobility

Yesterday, Seth Frotman, the top government official (ombudsman) overseeing the $1.5 trillion student loan market resigned from the CFPB-- not just resigned, but resigned in protest over the Trump Regime's open hostility toward protecting the nation’s millions of student loan borrowers. His scathing resignation better pointed out that the Regime "has turned its back on young people and their financial futures."

The office was at the center of the lawsuits against for-profit colleges like Corinthian Colleges and is currently heading up a lawsuit between the CFPB and Navient, one of the nation’s largest student lenders. The Navient lawsuit has been mired in bureaucratic red tape as the Department of Education, headed by Betsy DeVos, has been unwilling to help the CFPB with their lawsuit. Since its creation, the student loan office has returned $750 million to harmed borrowers.

“You have used the bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America,” Frotman wrote, addressing his letter to Mulvaney. “The damage you have done to the bureau betrays these families and sacrifices the financial futures of millions of Americans in communities across the country.”

Congress created the student loan ombudsman office when it established the CFPB, citing a need for a go-to person to handle student loan complaints nationwide. One previous occupant of that position is Rohit Chopra, who was appointed by President Trump to be a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission.

The ombudsman’s office is quite powerful, able to work with the bureau’s enforcement staff to target bad behavior in the student loan market as well as act as a voice inside the government on behalf of student loan borrowers. The office processed tens of thousands of complaints from student loan borrowers and was among the first major government offices to raise alarms about the growing issue of students being unable to afford repaying their loans.

But despite its work, Mulvaney downgraded the mission of Frotman’s student loan office earlier this summer and moved it under the umbrella of consumer education instead of enforcement. While at the time Mulvaney’s office said it was a minor organizational shake-up, consumer advocates saw the change as a move to downplay the CFPB’s mission when it came to student loans.

Frotman also accused Mulvaney and his staff of deliberately hiding a report from the public that raised alarms that banks were overcharging student loan borrowers.

“When new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were ripping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees, bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by bureau staff,” Frotman wrote.

The student loan office is not alone. Under Mulvaney, the bureau has scaled back its enforcement work and has proposed revising or rescinding all of the rules and regulations it put into place under the Obama administration.

“Seth Frotman is a public servant who treated every student loan complaint with the seriousness it deserved,” said Debbie Goldstein, executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending. “His departure raises concerns about the priorities of Mulvaney and CFPB leadership and whether they are fulfilling the mission of the CFPB to focus on protecting consumers from financial abuse.”

So what happens when the Trump nightmare is over? Moving forward, not backwards into some kind of status quo ante. Six months ago the Levy Economics Institute-- a nonpartisan public policy think tank at Bard College-- published The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt Cancellation by Stephanie Kelton, Scott Fullwiler, Catherine Ruetschin and Marshall Steinbaum. As DWT readers are aware, Stephanie Kelton was Bernie's economic adviser and they made a very big deal out of student debt all through the campaign, so big a deal that even Clinton and other status quo candidates began addressing the issue seriously. I suggest you read the entire paper but this is excerpted from the executive summary-- and goes right to the problems Frotman was trying to deal with while fending off a Regime generally hostile to education and to upward mobility of working class kids:

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 refinanc- ing 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.

• 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 rst few years following the elimina- tion of student loan debt adds roughly 1.2 million to 1.5 million new jobs per year.
• The in ationary effects of cancelling the debt are macro-economically 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 in ation 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 de cit-to-GDP ratio of 0.65 to 0.75 percentage points per year. Depending on the federal government’s budget position overall, the de cit 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, the more relevant estimates for the impacts on the government’s budget position relative to current levels are an annual increase in the de cit ratio of between 0.29 and 0.37 percentage points.
• State budget de cits 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.

A New And Better Day In Denver?

Denver is not a swing district. Obama won it by double digit margins both times he ran and in 2016 Hillary beat Trump there 69-23%. The PVI is a healthy D+21. And in the 2016 caucus Bernie won 14,624 (54.4%) to 12,,097 (45.0%). The is exactly the kind of district that should be sending someone to Congress who is pushing the envelope for progressive ideas-- for someone on the cutting edge like Alan Grayson, Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin or Mark Pocan. Instead Denver has a ho-hum, garden variety Democrat who has a "B" rating from ProgressivePunch and is basically, a waste of a seat, Diana DeGette, who takes money from the corporate PACs that pollute the political environment and isn't a single-payer enthusiast or anything that will overturn the status quo.

Denver deserves better than Diana DeGette-- and this year, on June 26, Denver has a golden opportunity to elect someone better: Saira Rao. I asked Saira about a specific issue that differentiates the status quo Democrats from the cutting edge Democrats: student debt cancellation, a key progressive plank. Saira: "It’s time to end the insanity of the cost of college tuition in our country and how we are handling the student-debt problem. Although there doesn’t seem to be an easy or quick fix, The College for All Act gets us closer to that place-- to the American Dream of attending college and being able to afford it. The bill creates a federal-state partnership where the federal and state government team up to provide families earning up to $125k per year, cover their tuition for public community colleges. It would also cut student-loan interest rates in half for new borrowers."

But there's even more that needs to be done and Saira is right on top of it. She told us with great enthusiasm:

A new study just came out published by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College that shows us a path to digging out of the $1.4 trillion dollar hole we face in Colorado and across the country. The report states that if we eliminate the debt, "44 million Americans who carry it could boost GDP by between $86 billion and $108 billion per year, on average for the 10 years following the cancellation. It would also lower the average unemployment rate by 0.22 to 0.36 percentage points over 10 years and could add between 1.2 million and 1.5 million jobs per year."

In Colorado this legislative session, a bill was introduced to regulate student education loan services. The bill would have forced loan servicers to give students accurate information about their loans. There are over 761,000 Coloradans who owe over $24 billion in student debt. That is outrageous and we need to work with the state government to find a solution so the future generation across the country can get access to quality education, not live in fear of how they plan on paying that will help boost our job force and economy in the process.

That really is an American game-changer. And we all know that the only way to even consider getting this done is by having leaders in Washington who will fight for us rather than for their big corporate donors. Colorado Democrats voted overwhelming for Bernie-- not for Hillary and not for Trump. That wasn't random. But despite what her constituents wanted DeGette, a Super-delegate went to the convention and voted for Hillary anyway. When next generation legislation is introduced in Congress by people like Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Ted Lieu or Mark Pocan, DeGette is always MIA. The reason Blue America has endorsed Saira Rao is because she'll be part of that team, not avoiding it.

Clicking on the 2018 ActBlue congressional thermometer on the left will take you to the Blue America page where you can contribute to Saira Rao's grassroots campaign. Helping her win this race is a very worthwhile endeavor and I hope you'll join us in supporting her.