The good news for Democrats this week is that Todd Akin has thrown Republicans off-message, pushing the GOP's extremism on reproductive rights into the spotlight. The bad news for Democrats this week is that Akin is also distracting attention away from what they want to talk about.
President Obama was in Columbus, Ohio, yesterday, pressing an issue that hasn't gotten much attention in the presidential race, but which Obama's re-election team sees as a key issue: education, or more specifically, Mitt Romney's vulnerability on education.
Here's a quote from the speech:
"When a high school student in Youngstown asked him what he would do to make college more affordable for families like his, Governor Romney didn't say anything about grants or loan programs that are critical to millions of students to get a college education. He said nothing about work-study programs or rising college tuition. He didn't say a word about community colleges or how important higher education is to America's future. He said, the best thing you can do is shop around. 'The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to shop around.'
"That's it. That's his plan. That's his answer to young people who are trying to figure out how to go to college and make sure that they don't have a mountain of debt -- shop around and borrow more money from your parents.
"Now, I want to make sure everybody understands. Not everybody has parents who have the money to lend. That may be news to some folks, but it's the truth."
Obama added, "[P]utting a college education within reach for working families just doesn't seem to be a big priority for my opponent," which seems self-evidently true.
Indeed, what makes this issue seem especially salient is that Romney doesn't have much of a defense. Obama's criticisms are accurate, and the Republican campaign isn't even trying to suggest otherwise.
By Romney's own admission, he intends slash Pell Grants, cut college tax credits, reintroduce the loan-system middleman that rewards banks instead of students, and encourage young people to choose wealthy parents when thinking about higher education.
After the president went on the offensive, the Romney campaign issued a statement from a surrogate, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), who argued that Romney, unlike Obama, will support private-school tuition vouchers.
But this is a non-sequitur -- putting aside the fact that vouchers are an unsuccessful, unpopular policy, they apply to K-12 education, and have literally nothing to do with making higher ed more accessible or affordable.
In other words, asked to defend Romney's position on helping young people get their degrees, the Romney campaign's main goal is to change the subject. Call me crazy, but given the number of families affected by education policy, this seems important.
Greg Sargent had a good piece yesterday equating Romney's problems on education with Romney's problems on Medicare.
Dems see the Ryan plan's impact on education as absolutely central to their efforts to portray the GOP ticket's priorities as dangerously out of whack for everyone but the wealthy. It's also key to Dem hopes of winning over key swing constituencies, such as independents, Latinos and non-college "waitress moms," and central to firming up support among the "Rising American Electorate," the Dem coalition of minorities, young voters and unmarried women.
A good window into the thinking of Dem strategists can be found in a July poll on the Ryan budget done in July by the Dem firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, whose findings are widely respected by top Dems.
The poll, which tested various messages about the Ryan plan, found that one of the leading voter concerns about the Ryan budget is cuts to education, particularly among key constituencies, and that those cuts raise serious doubts about Romney when voters are told that he supports the Ryan agenda.
Andrew Baumann, vice president of Greenberg Quinlan, told Greg, "There's a lot the voters don't like about the Ryan budget, but education is at least as important to voters as the Medicare piece is."
My instincts on what voters will care about are often wrong, but this seems like an issue worth watching.
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Romney - The Man Who Would Be King! Just saying! -Kevo
Everybody needs to be braced for what comes next: a Team Romney LieFact about Obama destroying educational opportunities while R&R attempt to unleash the power of the Invisible Hand in the private education market the save the future for our children and the future of the country.
Obama's education policy comes straight from Wall St. and is a total atrocity. Do your research, Obama is no friend to education, he has thrown open the gates to the hostile takeover of public education by corporate profiteers and stands there to welcome them with a tray of snacks, our tax dollars.
Heard of "helicopter parents"? It seems we now have a "helicopter President". It appears the citizenry is so bereft of intelligence and motivation, they need the Federal Govt to take them by the hand and show them how to get an education, feed themselves, pay their bills, etc., etc., etc..
Why are Democrats so eager to portray their base as inanimate dolts?
God, I hate feeding the trolls, but what is helicopterish about Pell grants and keeping the banks out of the student loan process?
Shooter:
I hope you are getting plenty of Koch Bros. Trolling Green Stamps. They do pay you nicely -- I hear, and 'nicely' for an amateur HS student, of course -- for getting your name in enough threads and causing enough distraction.
Of course you, who actually teaches a course in "Trolling 101," have reached the next level of the Pyramid. They might even give you a watch that actually works. But I wsh you'd found a different blog to infest with your nonsense. The watch and stamps are nice, but does it really make up for the insuls and ignoring you get here?
Do you realize that Paul Ryan was able to graduate from college thanks to money he received from Social Security?
Do you realize that the very government that Romney rails against has provided the foundation and structure for him to accumulate his massive wealth?
http://moelane.com/2012/06/09/troll-hunting-101/
By all means, attack what shooter says if you want, as there are people who truly believe the sort of gibberish shooter professes to believe. Just don't believe for a second that HE believes his attacks. Getting you pissed is nothing more than sport for him. Were it not this forum, he'd be on a Friends of Bill W. or Overeaters Anonymous forum talking about why you weaklings can't just put the bottle/cupcake down. He'd be on a forum for victims of abuse insisting "you must have done something wrong to get hit so hard." Getting you pissed, gets him off. Please, keep that visual in mind. Seeing the sheer number of people believing his horsecrap and getting righteously indignant about it literally makes fluid ooze out of his wiener. If it won't stop you from responding, it should at least convince you to not show anger, as it will only result in a bare semi at best.
You're welcome.
Right. People should take advice from someone that names himself "slappy magoo."
Meanwhile, Govt doling out college money to anyone that wants it has created a bubble. The price of college has skyrocketed, and college debt is now being collected by the IRS. Whether you graduate and get a job or not.
What's really interesting is the hue and cry for middle class jobs which would be better filled by graduates of welding school, not Phds in English Lit.
There are lots of ways to get a college education, having it spoon fed to anyone and everyone is a waste.
I chose the name "slappy magoo" for one pretty good reason - when people attack the name and not the substance of my argument, I know I've won.
Thank you, for illustrating your intellectual bankruptcy. So I don't have to.
http://moelane.com/2012/06/09/troll-hunting-101/
What's really funny is Mr. Mitty is completely living off the government.
Shooter .... We will defer to your immense greatness for a brief moment. Can you please explain how putting the banks back in the middle of the student loan process, skimming off funds that would otherwise go to those wishing to pursue a higher education, actually helps make that process more efficient?
Shooter is pretending that the federal government should not be in the business of trying to get its people educated, period. They've been involved in it for decades, mind you, but NOW it's bad according to the type of person Shooter is pretending to be for psycho-sexual purposes.
I'd be curious to see him list the "lots of ways" it's possible to get a college education besides the federal government giving you a loan, except
a: I'm afraid he'd stain his pants with glee for having been noticed again, an
b: There really aren't "lots of ways." You can pay for it yourself (if you have it). You can get the money from your parents or some other figure that cares about you (handout, just not from the government). You can take out a conventional loan from a bank (potentially higher interest rates and it won't do anything about the employment issues shooter's pretending to rail against). You can pay for it while working, but of course most colleges are so expensive most jobs wouldn't pay for it without the aforementioned loans. You can save up by working and THEN go to school, assuming you haven't married and/or started having a family by then. And there are scholarships awarded by private corporations, usually as a tax write-off, so the student might not be getting something off of the government but the company giving the scholarship IS.
That pretty much leaves military service followed by the GI Bill, again, a government service.
Oh, and hooking. Desperate people whoring themselves for money to pay for college (and there goes Shooter's pants anyway). I wouldn't consider these options to be "lots of ways."
And while I'm parsing, I like how Shooter assumes everyone going to "college" is getting a Ph.D. in English lit. Lots of people are getting loans for medical school, law school, vocational style schools for more hands-on types of jobs shooter seems to want people to prefer (soooo many hands, oops, more spillage for the shootster), engineering degrees to help usher in the next generation of clean energy techs. Goes against the stereotype of nerds writing yet another thesis comparing Tolkien's middle Earth to the Arms Race of the latter half of the 20th. century, which is why most Republicans like to pretend the stereotype is real and absolute.
Look at all the attention shooter's getting for himself today. I'll bet he rewards himself today by using his other hand, so it takes longer and feels like it's someone else in the room with him, for a change.
mpguy, they'll vet the applicants. Govt doesn't care about ability to pay back loans.
magoo, thanks for listing all the ways one can pay for a college education. And if you don't mind, find someone else to fantasize about.
mpguy- you view assume however that the government is "efficient"- how does that work
Shooter and ST54 . . . No, they won't "vet the loan applicants" any better than the Feds will. There was a 100% loan guarantee when the banks were doing this. It didn't matter if the bank's loan was repaid by the borrower. If he/she doesn't pay, the government pays the bank, so the bank gets its money anyway. There's no incentive for the bank, since it isn't playing with its own money.
More conservative drivel.
shooter, I'm confused. You only get nuttier if no one pays attention to you, so I pay attention to you, then you get all bitter towards me. I'm just trying to prevent you from going Full Metal Jacket at the nearest church tower. Not because I don't want you killing people, but because you're so bad at everything you'd do, you'd miss everyone, fail to take your own life, and your prison group therapy sessions will have to endure your boring nonsensical rants, and what did they do to deserve THAT?
Apparently Comcast hasn't paid NBC's AFP bill. I guess they are trying to pad their bottom line.
I doubt the President's team is too concerned about Akin taking them off message. The damage done by Akin to Romney and Ryan is priceless.
Before the Student Loan Reform, banks were getting subsidies to give out loans to students. The loans were guaranteed by the government. Basically, the government was taking all the risks of the loans and providing the money for the loans. And just for being the middleman in the deal, government was paying these banks guaranteed tax-payer subsidies. Student Loan Reform cut the banks out of the deal, and in doing so, saved tens of billions of dollars to ease the deficit and to give more college loans to students.
Romney wants to repeal this law and go back to the status quo.
"Governor Romney didn't say anything about grants or loan programs that are critical to millions of students to get a college education. He said nothing about work-study programs or rising college tuition. He didn't say a word about community colleges or how important higher education is to America's future. He said, the best thing you can do is shop around. 'The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to shop around.'
"That's it. That's his plan. That's his answer to young people who are trying to figure out how to go to college and make sure that they don't have a mountain of debt -- shop around and borrow more money from your parents."
Unfortunately, the President doesn't understand the economics of the problem. The loans and grants are the REASON that college costs so much and the REASON that students are so far in debt.
In fact unlike the rest of the US economy, colleges and universities have laid off comparatively few workers and experienced no downturn, precisely BECAUSE the pool of money available to them has increased not decreased. Even when states cut funding, colleges don't respond by cutting costs, they just raise tuition because the students can always borrow more.
Wow. "The problem isn't the downturn that is sucking money out of the system, the problem is how the schools are trying to deal with that." Are you really so naive as to not understand how wrong you are about that? And you claim the President is the one who doesn't understand...
And you know this because ... ?
Oh, that's right -- Bill O'Reilly, right?
(Hint: how much did tuition go up during the greatest educational tuition subsidy in the history of the world: the post-WWII GI Bill?)
Republicans don't move the goal post, they change the sport, which is why Obama has had to be "multi-letter man."
You're playing Education, we're playing Economy.
Great, my policies helped prevent the recession from turning into a depression even with all the Republican obstructionism, I pushed for infrastructure spending you guys wouldn't agree on even though you always agreed on infrastructure in the past, and the stock market has recouped all its losses from the crash...
Wait, you're playing Economy, We're playing Jobs!
Great, I also had a Jobs bill you guys wouldn't allow debate on in the Senate, more private sector jobs were created in my 4 years than in Bush's 8...
Wait, you're playing Jobs, we're playing National Security!
You DO know bin Laden & Qaddaffi are dead now, right?
Wait, did we say National Security, we meant Culture Issues!
You're attacking immigrants and women every day, you still want to repeal DADT and you're signing a Personhood Amendment as a part of your convention platform. Oh, and you've been passing abortion bill after abortion bill in the House with NO jobs bills ever finding their way to the floor...
Wait, you're playing Culture Issues, we're playing Education.
You guys HATE education, you want to abolish the DoE and replace it with vouchers for private schools that will have no oversight, and you literally are trying to make kids believe that man and dinosaurs co-existed, that Creationism in a bona fide scientific theory, that climate change is NOT proven and that higher education is for snobs.
You know, Obama, you're awfully smug, you're not the kind of person people want to have a beer with. That sort of smugness conveys the sort of insecure thinking of a psychopath ready to destroy America.
How?
Well, the questions is not for us to prove it, the question is, should the voters take that chance? Or should they play it safe, by not voting?
And that's how Republicans win.
When President Obama was running for office and subsequent he said he would fix things- he would make the economy better etc- he did not say he would do these things only if the Republicans cooperated- which in a sense is the point- Presidents can only do so much- really up to congress to "fix" things- that said President Obama you said you would make things better- so do it and stop complaining that the Republicans will not cooperate-
"The bad news for Democrats this week is that Akin is also distracting attention away from what they want to talk about"
You inadvertently raised an issue that is not much discussed. You say the Dummycrats are pushed off of message. The question is how is that so. You decided this because Taliban Akin's message subsumed the airways and the social media as Dummycrats and their supporters went after the bright shiny object. so the question is how do you stay on message.
The way you do this is the same way you make a business proposal. You have a comprehensive proposal. It is short sweet and to the point over the multiple issues. and you repeat it ad nauseum. Your mouth pieces always answer every question w/ a recap off your entire proposal. You allow your ad libs during the questioning period.
Thanks, kaneblues, for conciseness, and the template for the following analogy:
Before Medicare Advantage Reform, medical insurance companies were getting subsidies to insure Medicare patients that opted out of Original Medicare. The invisible hand of the marketplace was supposed to make insuring the elderly less expensive than Original Medicare, through the magic of Managed Care (Before Managed Care, these same insurers wouldn't touch the elderly, so Original Medicare was set up and became virtually the only medical insurer of the elderly). The savings were going to be so great, insurers would make a profit, while saving Medicare some money, just for being the middleman in the deal. So, a recap so far: FICA funds were now going to private companies' shareholders and also to cover the medical expenses of the elderly, who would now find out that they couldn't go out of plan, and the plan was quite stingy about what was medically necessary. In order to get people to enroll in these restrictive plans perks were offered, analogous to getting a toaster when opening a bank account. A weekly cleaning lady was a popular perk, or cheap glasses, or some dental coverage. The biggest perk for the fixed income retirees was shelter from the whirlwind of jacked-up drug prices. Needless to say, these gems of medical insurance were never able to pry a majority of Medicare patients away from Original Medicare. So their bold attempt to privatize Medicare failed, without ever being recognized as such. Even with the blessings of Managed Care, these insurers insisted that they needed reimbursement over what Medicare itself would have paid, making clear to any and everyone that Medicare Advantage was unnecessary spending of FICA funds better administered by Original Medicare. So Obamacare cut these insurance companies out of the deal, saving tens of billions of FICA dollars for actual medical care of the elderly. The point is that Obamacare got rid of a profit-hungry middleman, very analogous to getting profit-hungry banks out of the Student Loan Program.