Friday, August 14, 2015

Misc.

While all of the republicans whine about Trump, or taxes, or wanting more wars, Hilary Clinton makes a move to get the young people to vote for her by coming up with a reasonable avenue for seeing kids who want college educations can get them.  She is certainly thinking about giving young people who might occasionally wander into a voting booth a little more motivation.  She caught all those other guys flat footed.

And then there are the bail bondsmen in New Mexico who want to make sure things stay just the way they have been in getting people out of jail.  It makes them huge amounts of money and they don't like the idea of reforming the laws that control issues around granting bail.  If the legislature fails to act, then we know exactly who runs the House and Senate Chambers.

Senator Martin Heinrich and Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona have introduced a bill to reform the 1872 mining law.  Good for them.  That that law lets miners take public hard rock minerals out of the ground and pay nothing for it.  Then they leave a mess behind with inadequate bonds to clean up the poison tailings.  It will be interesting to see if our hapless Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn will support the reform.  He is unable to get fair market returns on State Resources when he has to compete against the feds who charge nothing.  That  much revered Senator Pete Domenici always fought against such reform.  Now he has buildings named after him.

4 comments:

Michelle Meaders said...

Um, Bernie Sanders has been advocating for that for a while. He rails against student loan interest and conditions:

"Student loans
See also: Student debt

Sanders believes tax reform is the solution, and has developed a plan to bring matching grants from the federal and state governments to cut tuition at public universities by more than half. He has criticized both Republicans and Democrats for failing to institute reforms that will stop predatory lending practices in the student loan market."

And in May he introduced a bill to have free tuition:

"Tuition-free public universities]

Sanders is in favor of public funding for college students. He believes "we live in a highly competitive global economy and, if our economy is to be strong, we need the best-educated work force in the world." He further maintains that many other developed nations in Western Europe have long taken this approach to higher education. Sanders expects his plan to meet strong opposition from the Republican Party, but says it is ultimately "the American people" who will determine its failure or success.[56]

On May 19, 2015, Sanders introduced the College for All Act (S.1373), which would use a Robin Hood tax of 50 cents on every "$100 of stock trades on stock sales" to fund tuition at four-year public colleges and universities for students who meet admission standards"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Bernie_Sanders#Student_loans

Anonymous said...

People aren't aware of Sanders proposals because he's being frozen out by the media. It's days between any mention of him on news aggregators like Google and then it's only when another poll shows him gaining some more ground on Hillary, then they drop him again. They never mention he's drawing the biggest crowds of any candidate in either party - 28,000 last weekend in Seattle was his biggest yet. Social media is keeping his campaign going and that alone, and the reason Sanders is being blacklisted is what Michelle said, he wants to reform the tax system.

Hillary doesn't. These college programs she's put forth will all be taken out of our pockets. She has no intention of and has not said she'd start making the wealthy and corporations start paying into the pot again like they did before the Reaganomics tax policies we have now, which were implemented with Democrat support as much as Republican, notably by people like her husband, and Al Gore who is now being urged to come in and rescue mainstream Democrats from the Sanders led uprising and Hillary's faltering campaign.

You all can talk about politics all day long, and all kinds of ways to rearrange the taxes they take out of our paychecks, but until we reverse Reaganomics we're gong to continue with this economy we have now that grows a couple percent a year, and government will keep shrinking, as it has during each year of the Obama Administration, with Democrat votes, including our whole New Mexico delegation, because people aren't spending money because they don't have it -- it's sitting at the top. Those problems Hillary's talking about with people not being able to afford college are because of tax polices she fully supports. I saw one article about her college proposals in which she ridiculously blames Republicans war on women. Give me a break. It's the Democrats' war on us.

Michelle Meaders said...

I don't see that many Democrats, including the ones from New Mexico, are voting for the sequester, except maybe on the military. Democrats want the government to invest in infrastructure and human services, but they keep getting out-voted. If the Repubs have a bill that seems to fix spending cut-offs, it usually has a poison pill in it.

Anonymous said...

These annual performance they put on when they're doing the budget may make it look like that, Michelle, but all have resulted in budgets that cut spending on social services, and our delegation always votes for them. Last year it was Head Start, veteran's benefits and federal employee retirement benefits and all New Mexico's Democrats voted for those cuts. I specifically recall Michelle Grisham justifying that vote by saying it didn't affect New Mexico.

Just somebody else's kids.

But, the change in the Democratic Party has happened over many years, and it's not surprising that not many people have noticed.