Political Roundtable - Part VII

[Zonkerbl]

Here's some liberal propaganda for you:

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/26/8849925/obama-obamacare-history-presidents

TL;DR: Obama is the most accomplished progressive President in the last century.

[TGW]

Conservative policies...a failure in Wisconsin.

Liberal policies in Minnesota, on the other hand...pretty successful.

A closer look at Wisconsin’s economy under Gov. Scott Walker

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is looking for a new job but, unfortunately, so are too many of his constituents.

After running on the promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs by the end of his first term, Walker didn’t just fail to meet this goal, he failed miserably, creating barely half of his promised amount.

Walker has implemented a failed economic strategy, based on basic and failed Republican economic principals, that has left Wisconsin lagging behind peer states.
Even just a glance at economic metrics in Wisconsin tells a story of stifled job growth, ballooning deficits, and a shrinking middle class.

When looking for reasons why Walker may have failed so miserably at creating jobs in Wisconsin, the obvious place to look would be his flagship job creation agency: The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). WEDC, which Walker chaired, gave out taxpayer-funded loans to hundreds of companies in the hopes of spurring growth. But the jobs Walker promised never materialized. Instead, in an epic display of mismanagement, WEDC lost track of millions of dollars in loans, gave awards to ineligible businesses, and has generally been a poor steward of taxpayers’ money.

In terms of job growth, Wisconsin has consistently trailed the national average. In fact, Wisconsin only saw 1.5 percent private-sector job growth in 2014. Unfortunately for Wisconsinites, while this is the best job creation number Walker has seen throughout his entire time in office, it lags far behind the national growth rate of 2.6 percent.

But none of this should come as a surprise. Instead of fulfilling his promise to create jobs, Walker has chosen to prioritize attacking public workers and teachers. All this did was create a culture of polarization that has divided his state to the core.

How big a failure have Walkernomics been? Just look next door at Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton’s Minnesota, which leads Wisconsin in almost every economic indicator.

In Minnesota, Dayton turned a $5 billion budget deficit into an over $1 billion budget surplus in just one term. By requiring the wealthiest earners to pay their fair share, Minnesota is now in a position to invest more resources into the state’s schools and infrastructure.

In Wisconsin, Walker was unable to take his state out of the red and faced a $2 billion budget deficit. Walker made the decision to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, while slashing education funding and refusing to make investments that would benefit middle class families and Wisconsin’s financial wellbeing.

In Minnesota, Dayton has moved forward Democratic policies like increasing the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid, and investing in the middle class, and now we are seen as one of the most business friendly states in the country. Just this year, Forbes ranked Minnesota as the 9th best state for business and careers, 7th in economic climate and 2nd in quality of life. On top of all that, CNBC just ranked Minnesota the country’s top state for business in 2015.

In Wisconsin, Walker refuses to raise the minimum wage and equal pay legislation, rejected federal funds to expand Medicaid, and attacked Wisconsin workers with right to work legislation and anti-collective bargaining policies. As a result, the cost of doing business in Wisconsin is higher than the national average, and median household income in Wisconsin is thousands of dollars less than it is in Minnesota.

While Dayton has clearly reformed Minnesota and put our state on a path to economic prosperity, Walker has reformed Wisconsin for the worse. So if Walker wants to run on a platform of his reforms and economic growth, what exactly does he have to brag about?

Walker and other Republican governors running for president like to say their credentials as a governors make them most qualified to be president. But in reality, those credentials amount to failed job creation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and ballooning deficits. Not so presidential in my opinion.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/presidential-campaign/247539-a-closer-look-at-wisconsins-economy-under-gov-scott

[nate33]

Conservative policies...a failure in Wisconsin.

Liberal policies in Minnesota, on the other hand...pretty successful.

A closer look at Wisconsin’s economy under Gov. Scott Walker

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is looking for a new job but, unfortunately, so are too many of his constituents.

After running on the promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs by the end of his first term, Walker didn’t just fail to meet this goal, he failed miserably, creating barely half of his promised amount.

Walker has implemented a failed economic strategy, based on basic and failed Republican economic principals, that has left Wisconsin lagging behind peer states.
Even just a glance at economic metrics in Wisconsin tells a story of stifled job growth, ballooning deficits, and a shrinking middle class.

When looking for reasons why Walker may have failed so miserably at creating jobs in Wisconsin, the obvious place to look would be his flagship job creation agency: The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). WEDC, which Walker chaired, gave out taxpayer-funded loans to hundreds of companies in the hopes of spurring growth. But the jobs Walker promised never materialized. Instead, in an epic display of mismanagement, WEDC lost track of millions of dollars in loans, gave awards to ineligible businesses, and has generally been a poor steward of taxpayers’ money.

In terms of job growth, Wisconsin has consistently trailed the national average. In fact, Wisconsin only saw 1.5 percent private-sector job growth in 2014. Unfortunately for Wisconsinites, while this is the best job creation number Walker has seen throughout his entire time in office, it lags far behind the national growth rate of 2.6 percent.

But none of this should come as a surprise. Instead of fulfilling his promise to create jobs, Walker has chosen to prioritize attacking public workers and teachers. All this did was create a culture of polarization that has divided his state to the core.

How big a failure have Walkernomics been? Just look next door at Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton’s Minnesota, which leads Wisconsin in almost every economic indicator.

In Minnesota, Dayton turned a $5 billion budget deficit into an over $1 billion budget surplus in just one term. By requiring the wealthiest earners to pay their fair share, Minnesota is now in a position to invest more resources into the state’s schools and infrastructure.

In Wisconsin, Walker was unable to take his state out of the red and faced a $2 billion budget deficit. Walker made the decision to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, while slashing education funding and refusing to make investments that would benefit middle class families and Wisconsin’s financial wellbeing.

In Minnesota, Dayton has moved forward Democratic policies like increasing the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid, and investing in the middle class, and now we are seen as one of the most business friendly states in the country. Just this year, Forbes ranked Minnesota as the 9th best state for business and careers, 7th in economic climate and 2nd in quality of life. On top of all that, CNBC just ranked Minnesota the country’s top state for business in 2015.

In Wisconsin, Walker refuses to raise the minimum wage and equal pay legislation, rejected federal funds to expand Medicaid, and attacked Wisconsin workers with right to work legislation and anti-collective bargaining policies. As a result, the cost of doing business in Wisconsin is higher than the national average, and median household income in Wisconsin is thousands of dollars less than it is in Minnesota.

While Dayton has clearly reformed Minnesota and put our state on a path to economic prosperity, Walker has reformed Wisconsin for the worse. So if Walker wants to run on a platform of his reforms and economic growth, what exactly does he have to brag about?

Walker and other Republican governors running for president like to say their credentials as a governors make them most qualified to be president. But in reality, those credentials amount to failed job creation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and ballooning deficits. Not so presidential in my opinion.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/presidential-campaign/247539-a-closer-look-at-wisconsins-economy-under-gov-scott

Ah. I guess Walker is becoming a threat so it's time for the Democrat hack hit pieces to come out. That was the most biased "article" I've read in a long time. I particularly loved all of the key catch phrases. Walker's agenda was based on "failed Republican principles", as if it's actually an accepted fact that Republican concepts always fail. The wealthiest earners must pay their "fair share" when I'm certain they already paid a much greater proportion of their salary to taxes than the middle class do. Oh, and Walker "refuses to make investments in the middle class". I love that one. Any spending, of any kind whatsoever, is always defined by Democrat hacks as "investments".

Scott Walker turned a $3.6 billion deficit into a $500 million surplus. This article, one that is actually unbiased, points out that it was probably more like a $177 million surplus, but that's still a $3.77 billion turnaround.

The truth is that Minnesota was already in full rebound mode when Dayton took over. After a few years of his policies, job growth slowed dramatically. The opposite is true for Walker. He took over a struggling economy, which still struggled for a bit as his policies took effect, and then it took off. Last year, Wisconsin significantly outperformed Minnesota in job growth and projections are for the trend to continue:


Link

Mark Dayton took over in Minnesota 4 years ago when it was booming at a much higher rate than the rest of the midwest. It is now in dead last in job growth. Furthermore, the vast majority of job growth in Wisconsin is private job growth. Walker didn't meet his goal of 250,000 new private sector jobs, but he got to 160,000. I wonder how much of Dayton's job growth is private sector growth?

[dckingsfan]

Conservative policies...a failure in Wisconsin.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/presidential-campaign/247539-a-closer-look-at-wisconsins-economy-under-gov-scott[/quote]

Laughable - they should cite Illinois as the winning strategy - come on TGW - even you have to suspect that paying retirement benefits in arrears will bankrupt a municipality... see Detroit, see Puerto Rico, see so many cities in CA. See Harrisburg.

Until Ds get their fiscal houses in order - they will continue to ruin the balance sheets of local economies.

[TheSecretWeapon]

This was an incredible read.

First few paragraphs:

The rickety raft made of empty oil drums and a wooden tabletop rolled and pitched with the waves while tied to the side of the Dona Liberta, a 370-foot cargo ship anchored far from land in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa.

“Go down!” yelled a knife-wielding crew member, forcing two Tanzanian stowaways overboard and onto the raft. As angry clouds gathered on the horizon, he cut the line.

Gambling on a better life, the stowaways had run out of luck. They had already spent nine days at sea, most of the time hiding in the Dona Liberta’s engine room, crouched deep in oily water. But as they climbed down onto the slick raft, the men, neither of whom knew how to swim, nearly slid into the ocean before lashing themselves together to the raft with a rope.

As the Dona Liberta slowly disappeared, David George Mndolwa, one of the abandoned pair, recalled thinking: “This is the end.”

A whole lotta **** goes down on the oceans, apparently.

[dckingsfan]

This was an incredible read.

First few paragraphs:

The rickety raft made of empty oil drums and a wooden tabletop rolled and pitched with the waves while tied to the side of the Dona Liberta, a 370-foot cargo ship anchored far from land in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa.

“Go down!” yelled a knife-wielding crew member, forcing two Tanzanian stowaways overboard and onto the raft. As angry clouds gathered on the horizon, he cut the line.

Gambling on a better life, the stowaways had run out of luck. They had already spent nine days at sea, most of the time hiding in the Dona Liberta’s engine room, crouched deep in oily water. But as they climbed down onto the slick raft, the men, neither of whom knew how to swim, nearly slid into the ocean before lashing themselves together to the raft with a rope.

As the Dona Liberta slowly disappeared, David George Mndolwa, one of the abandoned pair, recalled thinking: “This is the end.”

A whole lotta **** goes down on the oceans, apparently.

Yep... I found this paragraph interesting...

In recent months, the United States has said that it intends to take a bigger role in high seas governance. “We ignore the oceans at our peril,” said Secretary of State John Kerry, who has pushed for more marine conservation globally and in May brokered a landmark deal with Russia to regulate trawling in Arctic waters.

[TGW]

Baltimore ex-cop pretty much spills the beans:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5nPyf-0UMc&feature=iv&src_vid=GV3Ctz8pfeU&annotation_id=annotation_2833882579[/youtube]

[Wizardspride]

I don't believe any of that.

It's just Obama, Holder & Sharpton fomenting division among the races.

[dckingsfan]

Wall Street Journal editorial group was banging it's head against a wall again - "College Aid Means Higher Tuition". Duh. Please see the housing bubble and subsequent great recession.

I like this quote: "Ohio University economist Richard Vedder connected these dots a decade ago, estimating in 2006 that every dollar of grant aid raised tuition 35 cents. He now looks prescient. The New York Fed study found that for every new dollar a college receives in Direct Subsidized Loans, a school raises its price by 65 cents. For every dollar in Pell Grants, a college raises tuition by 55 cents. This is one reason tuition has outpaced inflation every year for decades..."

Add to that the waste of space that is "Dodd-Frank" and we continue to heap bad policy on bad policy. Has "Dodd-Frank" taken care of the too big to fail, no. Has increased the number of smaller banks, no.

What ticks me off is that these policies are killing our young less financially well off kids. Tuition costs going up reduces their chances. Housing bubble hit the poorest among us the hardest. And Dodd-Frank has lead to a rise of the unbanked and underbanked among those low-incomes.

When do we get to kill some of these programs? Hillary? Jeb?

[TheSecretWeapon]

I have two kids starting college this fall. I've been reading about the rise in the cost of college, but I was stunned to see the actual numbers. My son got a full ride at Michigan, and it's a damn good thing he did because I couldn't afford to send him there without it. Cost of attendance this year is $57k.

My daughter will be at Temple on a partial scholarship. Again, good thing she got it because I couldn't afford it otherwise. Cost of attendance there is $25k-35k depending on whether she qualifies for in-state (she worked in Philly for the past two years).

My son got into NYU (with a sizable award), but the cost there is over $70k, and it was prohibitive. It wasn't a top choice for him, so no biggie, but still -- $70k-plus for a YEAR. It's insanity.

[Zonkerbl]

Education has been drastically underpriced for decades. The return on a college education for a long time was about 400%. The market is just finally catching up.

This article says the median graduate earned about $45,000 upon graduation:
http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/

High school graduates earn about $30,000, so we're talking about $15,000 per year.

Hm... Taking into account that you can earn a HS salary right after graduation but have to wait four years for the college salary, the present discounted value of a college degree is $149k vs $99k for the high school education, for a grand total of $50k. Divided over four years that's $12k per year.

Yikes!!!!! I take it back!

[nate33]

Education has been drastically underpriced for decades. The return on a college education for a long time was about 400%. The market is just finally catching up.

This article says the median graduate earned about $45,000 upon graduation:
http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/

High school graduates earn about $30,000, so we're talking about $15,000 per year.

Hm... Taking into account that you can earn a HS salary right after graduation but have to wait four years for the college salary, the present discounted value of a college degree is $149k vs $99k for the high school education, for a grand total of $50k. Divided over four years that's $12k per year.

Yikes!!!!! I take it back!

In a free market, the cost of education shouldn't be dependent on the return of college education on an individual's earnings. The cost of education should be dependent the raw cost to educate a student in a competitive market. There's no reason why it should cost $50,000 a year to put a teenager in front of a qualified instructor for 18 hours a week.

What we have is an education monopoly imposed by the accreditation process.

I sincerely hope the on-line colleges start seriously cutting into those fat education profits.

[nate33]

Wall Street Journal editorial group was banging it's head against a wall again - "College Aid Means Higher Tuition". Duh. Please see the housing bubble and subsequent great recession.

I like this quote: "Ohio University economist Richard Vedder connected these dots a decade ago, estimating in 2006 that every dollar of grant aid raised tuition 35 cents. He now looks prescient. The New York Fed study found that for every new dollar a college receives in Direct Subsidized Loans, a school raises its price by 65 cents. For every dollar in Pell Grants, a college raises tuition by 55 cents. This is one reason tuition has outpaced inflation every year for decades..."

Add to that the waste of space that is "Dodd-Frank" and we continue to heap bad policy on bad policy. Has "Dodd-Frank" taken care of the too big to fail, no. Has increased the number of smaller banks, no.

What ticks me off is that these policies are killing our young less financially well off kids. Tuition costs going up reduces their chances. Housing bubble hit the poorest among us the hardest. And Dodd-Frank has lead to a rise of the unbanked and underbanked among those low-incomes.

When do we get to kill some of these programs? Hillary? Jeb?

You and I both know that they won't kill these programs. They will just subsidize them even more. A liberal's solution to a governmental problem is always more government!

[TheSecretWeapon]

Education has been drastically underpriced for decades. The return on a college education for a long time was about 400%. The market is just finally catching up.

This article says the median graduate earned about $45,000 upon graduation:
http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/

High school graduates earn about $30,000, so we're talking about $15,000 per year.

Hm... Taking into account that you can earn a HS salary right after graduation but have to wait four years for the college salary, the present discounted value of a college degree is $149k vs $99k for the high school education, for a grand total of $50k. Divided over four years that's $12k per year.

Yikes!!!!! I take it back!

In a free market, the cost of education shouldn't be dependent on the return of college education on an individual's earnings. The cost of education should be dependent the raw cost to educate a student in a competitive market. There's no reason why it should cost $50,000 a year to put a teenager in front of a qualified instructor for 18 hours a week.

Especially when you think about the number of adjuncts and grad students who end up teaching many of the classes for minimal salaries.

[DCZards]

Wall Street Journal editorial group was banging it's head against a wall again - "College Aid Means Higher Tuition". Duh. Please see the housing bubble and subsequent great recession.

I like this quote: "Ohio University economist Richard Vedder connected these dots a decade ago, estimating in 2006 that every dollar of grant aid raised tuition 35 cents. He now looks prescient. The New York Fed study found that for every new dollar a college receives in Direct Subsidized Loans, a school raises its price by 65 cents. For every dollar in Pell Grants, a college raises tuition by 55 cents. This is one reason tuition has outpaced inflation every year for decades..."

Add to that the waste of space that is "Dodd-Frank" and we continue to heap bad policy on bad policy. Has "Dodd-Frank" taken care of the too big to fail, no. Has increased the number of smaller banks, no.

What ticks me off is that these policies are killing our young less financially well off kids. Tuition costs going up reduces their chances. Housing bubble hit the poorest among us the hardest. And Dodd-Frank has lead to a rise of the unbanked and underbanked among those low-incomes.

When do we get to kill some of these programs? Hillary? Jeb?

You and I both know that they won't kill these programs. They will just subsidize them even more. A liberal's solution to a governmental problem is always more government!

It would be a bad idea to simply kill the Pell Grant program and other college aid programs. That would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, imo. These college aid programs have the right goal and without them many low-income kids wouldn't be able to afford college at all....no matter how little it cost. What's needed is reform of these programs and a butt kicking for those colleges and universities who are routinely raising tuitions and putting the cost of a college education out of reach of many American kids and their families.

We also need to do something about the insane and unnecessary high interest rates that financial institutions are charging for college loans. This is an issue that Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others have been trying to get our elected leaders on Cap Hill to address.

[DCZards]

I sincerely hope the on-line colleges start seriously cutting into those fat education profits.

I'm all for online colleges and think they are a great development that is helping to educate a lot of people, particularly adults. But I wouldn't trade my on campus college experience for anything. I learned as much, or more, outside of the classroom as I learned in it. And the enduring friendships that I developed with my college classmates are PRICELESS.

[dckingsfan]

Wall Street Journal editorial group was banging it's head against a wall again - "College Aid Means Higher Tuition". Duh. Please see the housing bubble and subsequent great recession.

I like this quote: "Ohio University economist Richard Vedder connected these dots a decade ago, estimating in 2006 that every dollar of grant aid raised tuition 35 cents. He now looks prescient. The New York Fed study found that for every new dollar a college receives in Direct Subsidized Loans, a school raises its price by 65 cents. For every dollar in Pell Grants, a college raises tuition by 55 cents. This is one reason tuition has outpaced inflation every year for decades..."

Add to that the waste of space that is "Dodd-Frank" and we continue to heap bad policy on bad policy. Has "Dodd-Frank" taken care of the too big to fail, no. Has increased the number of smaller banks, no.

What ticks me off is that these policies are killing our young less financially well off kids. Tuition costs going up reduces their chances. Housing bubble hit the poorest among us the hardest. And Dodd-Frank has lead to a rise of the unbanked and underbanked among those low-incomes.

When do we get to kill some of these programs? Hillary? Jeb?

You and I both know that they won't kill these programs. They will just subsidize them even more. A liberal's solution to a governmental problem is always more government!

It would be a bad idea to simply kill the Pell Grant program and other college aid programs. These programs have the right goal and without them many low-income kids wouldn't be able to afford college at all....no matter how little it cost. What's needed is a reform of these programs and a butt kicking for those colleges and universities who are routinely raising tuitions and putting the cost of a college education out of reach of many American kids and their families.

It is a mistake to keep them going. They are well intentioned. And they don't work.

They have simply priced those families out of the market. If the government didn't give grants and didn't provide loans (that can't be settled in bankruptcy court I might add) then the costs wouldn't go up so dramatically.

If the government wants to help, then they need to push the supply side - more colleges to compete to drop the prices.

Example: push a service that provides certificates for MOOCs - and hire based off of that service.

Example: Don't let colleges be non-profits if they don't meet certain criteria (spending a specific portion of their endowment or expanding at a certain rate) then they become for profit.

The current theory is a COMPLETE disaster. Giving partial scholarships and guaranteeing loans that chase a limited resource will ALWAYS drive up costs and limit the opportunity for those that need it most. It needs to go...

It was the same with driving down the criteria to qualify for a loan... really bad government policy that needs to completely vanish.

[Induveca]

Any parent willing to pay 70k a year to send their kid to NYU is living 2 decades behind. It makes much more sense to take specialized online/offline courses, hire a mentor, and take advantage of free MOOCs online while holding down an entry level job in the industry of your choice. Lastly, joining local meetups regularly will get you where you want to be if you're motivated, and you'll have an amazing network no university grad can touch in 2 years.....and you won't be in debt!

Admittedly this works better for tech/finance/business types.

[dobrojim]

I have two kids starting college this fall. I've been reading about the rise in the cost of college, but I was stunned to see the actual numbers. My son got a full ride at Michigan, and it's a damn good thing he did because I couldn't afford to send him there without it. Cost of attendance this year is $57k.

My daughter will be at Temple on a partial scholarship. Again, good thing she got it because I couldn't afford it otherwise. Cost of attendance there is $25k-35k depending on whether she qualifies for in-state (she worked in Philly for the past two years).

My son got into NYU (with a sizable award), but the cost there is over $70k, and it was prohibitive. It wasn't a top choice for him, so no biggie, but still -- $70k-plus for a YEAR. It's insanity.

My girls are both going to Hollins Univ in Roanoke. Full cost is ~ $48K. They both are getting partial scholarships
so I'm paying about half that for each. They next 3 years are gonna be tough and without the savings
I had, it would have been impossible for them to attend, at least not without greater assistance or
going into debt.

[dobrojim]

Wall Street Journal editorial group was banging it's head against a wall again - "College Aid Means Higher Tuition". Duh. Please see the housing bubble and subsequent great recession.

I like this quote: "Ohio University economist Richard Vedder connected these dots a decade ago, estimating in 2006 that every dollar of grant aid raised tuition 35 cents. He now looks prescient. The New York Fed study found that for every new dollar a college receives in Direct Subsidized Loans, a school raises its price by 65 cents. For every dollar in Pell Grants, a college raises tuition by 55 cents. This is one reason tuition has outpaced inflation every year for decades..."

Add to that the waste of space that is "Dodd-Frank" and we continue to heap bad policy on bad policy. Has "Dodd-Frank" taken care of the too big to fail, no. Has increased the number of smaller banks, no.

What ticks me off is that these policies are killing our young less financially well off kids. Tuition costs going up reduces their chances. Housing bubble hit the poorest among us the hardest. And Dodd-Frank has lead to a rise of the unbanked and underbanked among those low-incomes.

When do we get to kill some of these programs? Hillary? Jeb?

You and I both know that they won't kill these programs. They will just subsidize them even more. A liberal's solution to a governmental problem is always more government!

most absolute statements are typically wrong