What Liberals Really Want: 5 Goals for End of Obama’s Presidency (Voting, guns, student loans)

ABC News ^ | July 17, 2014 | Caleb Jackson and Noah Weiland

[2ndDivisionVet]

From reducing student loan debt to expanding voter rights to dealing with the scourge of violent crime, liberals have laid out an ambitious agenda for the waning years of the Obama presidency.

At a day-long summit Wednesday organized by Generation Progress, the youth division of the influential Washington-based think tank Center for American Progress, speakers such as Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi articulated their goals to a Washington audience of more than 1,000.

Here are five issues that came up again and again at the Make Progress National Summit, and the ones most likely to be focal points for Democrats in the next two years:

1. Student Loan Debt:

Catering to a crowd of millennials, members of Congress who spoke at the summit used the crisis as fuel for the liberal fire. Indeed, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., dedicated her entire speech to highlighting the crisis and had quite a few choice words for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. When discussing the failure of her “Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act” bill, Warren said that a filibuster of the bill was led by McConnell, prompting several boos from the crowd. She went on to say, “We are going to build a better country than the one Mitch McConnell envisions,” garnering applause. Toward the end of her speech, she told the crowd to challenge Republican senators and “ask them why they work for billionaires instead of for students trying to build a better future.”

2. Campus Sexual Assault:

The high rate of sexual assault on college campuses was also a huge talking point at the summit....

[GraceG]

My Solutions:

1. Student Loan Debt: - Stop sending your kids to over riced colleges that only pay the salaries for liberal professors and make work campus construction projects.

2. Campus Sexual Assault: - Fixed with solution for Problem #1.

3. Paid Leave: - Completely up to the employer.

4. Gun Violence Prevention: - Arm more good decent people.

5. Voting Rights: - Voter ID, I don’t have the “right” to have my vote nullified by someone voting multiple times against me.

[GraceG]

Here is an idea for Student Loan Debt.

Take every professor in a college that gets paid over 100,000.00 a year. Take their yearly salary above 100,000.00 and make each one of them draft a check for the remainder split amongst all of their students to be applied to the student’s student loan debt.

Let the People spreading communism LIVE under communism for godssake

[longfellow]

The high rate of sexual assault on college campuses was also a huge talking point at the summit....

Did they use Clunton the rapist and why he lost his rhoades scholarship as an example?

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Automatic 3-deferments for existing student loan borrowers, in exchange for ending all federal authority in education.

[nascarnation]

I said on here 2 yrs ago that when the millennials get snarky about granny’s early demise at the hands of the Death Panels, the regime will hand out Groupons for student loan relief.

[Soul of the South]

Here is a perspective on student loan debt. Per the College Board the average annual cost (2014) of a four year public university is $9500 for room and board and $8890 for tuition and fees for a total of $18,390. Over four years the cost of a public university 4 year degree is $73,560.

If a professor makes $100,000 a year at a public school it is reasonable for a taxpayer to expect her to be on campus working at least 8 hours a day, 5 days per week. That should allow the professor to teach 6 one hour classes per day and be in his/her office 2 hours per day (25% of her paid time) to meet with students or perform administrative tasks. Assuming each class has 20 students in it, the professor will be teaching 120 students per semester or 240 per year. Dividing $100,000 by 240 gives a cost per student per class of $416.66. Assuming the student takes 5 classes per semester, or 10 classes per year, the total cost of instruction for the student is $416.66 X 10 or $4166. The student is paying $8890 for tuition and fees meaning over half of the student’s tuition and fee bill is going for things other than instruction (buildings, library, recreation centers, groundskeeping, bureaucratic overhead).

Warren and others argue it isn’t fair for some students to be leaving college with $200,000 in loans to pay off. I disagree. Going to an expensive high cost ($50-$60,000 per year) private institution is a personal choice. There are less expensive alternatives as the state university example above indicates. All students have the opportunity to compete for ROTC scholarships, in return for military service after graduation, which will pay for full tuition. Students in urban and suburban areas can attend local universities and live at home to reduce costs. Students can also work 10 to 15 hours per week while going to college and many do.

Assuming heavy student debt load is a choice, not a requirement. The taxpayers have no responsibility to pay for poor choices.

[nascarnation]

The student loan program is essentially a way to route tax dollars (or created fake money depending on how you do the accounting) through universities to highly paid admins and profs who donate heavily to Democrats.

[Bratch]

What liberals truly want is a reliable majority of justices on the SCOTUS. Everything else is gravy.