Prager U: The Way out of Poverty

[BigRedBuster]

No, I'm asking what "growing the economy" and "more jobs" means if it doesn't mean corporate welfare and tax breaks at the top. That's traditionally what it has meant.

 

Just like "driving costs down for 4 year colleges" -- what does that mean? It doesn't sound like a Bernie Sanders-style government-sponsored tuition break, but if it's not, then you need to substantiate why you get to make the claim that this is the priority.

Well, I'm not going to answer for TG, but here's my response to this.

I get really tired of the claim that everything that helps corporations grow and prosper as being "Corporate welfare". That term is getting just as worn out and over used as "welfare queen".

 

I have said before, part of the government's job is to create an environment that allows business and industry to prosper. NO...that doesn't mean no regulations...etc. There needs to be reasonable regulations and as low of tax on corporations as possible. That isn't "corporate welfare". That's being smart.

 

As for taxes, I personally wouldn't be totally against corporations having zero income tax as an entity IF they manufacture products in the US. Now, there would need to be one hell of a lot of other tax changes to make that happen. We would need to increase taxes on the people who benefit from that corporation such as investors, employees, management...etc.

 

That's going down a different bunny trail. But, my answer is, create an environment that doesn't stifle industry, bring jobs back to the US....AND....at the same time, increase funding for education so those companies have well educated and trained employees.

[zoogs]

I have said before, part of the government's job is to create an environment that allows business and industry to prosper. NO...that doesn't mean no regulations...etc. There needs to be reasonable regulations and as low of tax on corporations as possible. That isn't "corporate welfare". That's being smart.

I *completely* agree with this.

 

I don't agree with people who take the spirit of this argument and use it to push for policy that continues to tilt the scales in one direction. It's not exactly a mystery where and how income has flowed for the past however long.

 

There is a huge difference between duty to that economic environment versus duty to the power-players within it. However, given how much access they have to influence the levers of policy, it also shouldn't be a surprise where the focus has been. They would have us believe that these are the same thing, that their goals are the same as the market's goals.

 

I also get that any term can get tired if used enough, but there's nothing wrong with welfare if it's deployed for a good reason, even to corporations. Corporate welfare and its abuse happens on a much, much larger scale than the absurd and demeaning tales of individual lobster-eating "welfare queens", though.

[TGHusker]

No, I'm asking what "growing the economy" and "more jobs" means if it doesn't mean corporate welfare and tax breaks at the top. That's traditionally what it has meant.

 

Just like "driving costs down for 4 year colleges" -- what does that mean? It doesn't sound like a Bernie Sanders-style government-sponsored tuition break, but if it's not, then you need to substantiate why you get to make the claim that this is the priority.

Most jobs are created in the small business sector. Grow that sector you grow the economy. Ask BRB - he owns a small business. I'm no fan of 'corporate welfare' whether it is in the form of building a new stadium for the Min Vikings (my team of choice) or giving million $$ tax breaks to big corporations who then move jobs offshore. I'm ok with targeted tax breaks that spur development or redevelopment of a particular industry - alternative fuels, technology, manufacturing - all with the purpose of developing jobs in those industries. To really grow business you have to look at what do small and medium size businesses need to succeed and grow. That is where individual tax relief comes into play and also a proper regulatory balance.

 

The Bernie Sanders tuition break does nothing to drive down costs - it is just another layer of govt spending entitlements and places in concrete the inefficient status quo. Higher Ed is living off of its dinosaur past and govt is holding it up with all kinds of grants and programs. In our age of technology do we really need to finance these large campus environments, do we need to maintain tenured professorships, do we need the sports arms race (it should have stopped after NU had the best facilities - had to hold out for my college football program ) We have to also remember that many of the large private colleges are also a big business. They have huge endowments to live off of and still have high tuition while taking govt money. It is another type of corp welfare but since most large univ lean left, it is a corp welfare that is rarely talked about.

 

Here is a great article from US News and World report ( I grew up reading US News in its paper form - there wasn't internet then!) It outlines 25 ways we can drive down the cost of college. (note it isn't a conservative site )

 

https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2010/12/28/25-ways-for-colleges-to-cut-costs

[zoogs]

Are you quite sure the AEI president was talking about targeted tax breaks to spur particular industries only? That doesn't jive with the grand Paul Ryan vision that I believe AEI full-throatedly endorses.

 

Free tuition to lower income students does nothing to drive down costs for them? Are we still honestly talking about expanding higher education access to the poor? Because "reform tenure" and "cut unnecessary programs" doesn't do it. At least, one author's column is in no way an expression of your policy proposal. (I'm not the biggest fan of Bernie's approach, either, to be fair. I think there are probably bigger priorities.)

 

So let's talk about a two-pronged approach. I'm on board with ideas like "proper regulatory balance" and encouraging small businesses in conjunction with social welfare programs and universal healthcare. But the Republican argument has always been "...and by the way, completely gut entitlement spending." This is by definition not a two-pronged approach. This has *always* been an advocacy for dismantling the latter, with the sheer fantasy that the former will make up for it. Look at the Obama years, though -- coming off a deregulation-induced financial crisis, no less. Did small businesses wither in that environment?

 

I'm starting to feel like you wouldn't agree with this guy when it comes down to actual policy.

[TGHusker]

Are you quite sure the AEI president was talking about targeted tax breaks to spur particular industries only? That doesn't jive with the grand Paul Ryan vision that I believe AEI full-throatedly endorses.

 

Free tuition to lower income students does nothing to drive down costs for them? Are we still honestly talking about expanding higher education access to the poor? Because "reform tenure" and "cut unnecessary programs" doesn't do it. At least, one author's column is in no way an expression of your policy proposal. (I'm not the biggest fan of Bernie's approach, either, to be fair. I think there are probably bigger priorities.)

 

So let's talk about a two-pronged approach. I'm on board with ideas like "proper regulatory balance" and encouraging small businesses in conjunction with social welfare programs and universal healthcare. But the Republican argument has always been "...and by the way, completely gut entitlement spending." This is by definition not a two-pronged approach. This has *always* been an advocacy for dismantling the latter, with the sheer fantasy that the former will make up for it. Look at the Obama years, though -- coming off a deregulation-induced financial crisis, no less. Did small businesses wither in that environment?

 

I'm starting to feel like you wouldn't agree with this guy when it comes down to actual policy.

I'm telling you what I am thinking of not what the AEI president specifically had in mind - he didn't lay all of his ideas out. I don't believe in 'completely gutting the entitlement spending' mantra where ever it comes from. I believe in providing services and funding as efficiently as possible. Now part of that may be done at the federal level by removing waste and unneeded regulations. Some of it could be by moving services closer to the recipient of those services - moving some federal programs to the states and cities. It may have to come wt federal funding to do so. Whenever you hear the mantra - 'gut entitlement spending' from the right it is code to "keep me in office and I will eventually, maybe, most certainly in the next 100 years to get this done". When you hear it from the left it is 'please send me the money to unseat that #&@* right winger who is going to push grandma over the cliff'.

 

Regarding the bold, I don't know - he didn't lay down specifics in his 4 minute presentation.

 

Here is the list of 25 ways to lower the cost of higher ed from the article I posted above. I think all are worthy of consideration. # 24 and 25 are especially thought provoking:

 

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, however, has produced a white paper that lays out "25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College."

There are some excellent suggestions on the center's list. What do you think of these cost-cutting ideas?

1. Encourage more students to enroll at community colleges. Two-year colleges cost far less than four-year schools.

[Read four things you should know about community college.]

2. Promote dual degree programs, which allow high school students to take college courses. These programs include Advanced Placement classes, International Baccalaureate programs, and community college courses.

3. Reform tenure. Tenure is costly and is a crutch for the professors who are least valued.

4. Offer three-year bachelor's degrees, which are common in Europe.

5. Outsource services such as health centers, building maintenance, and recreation centers.

6. Reduce administrative staff. Some schools have more administrative staff than faculty. Bloated administrative staffs are expensive and contribute to stodgy decision making.

7. Cut unnecessary programs.

8. End the athletic arms race. Fewer than 20 collegiate athletic programs in this country make money, while many schools lose $10 million or more in their sports operations.

9. Overhaul the federal financial aid form. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which asks more than 100 questions, needs further reform.

10. Eliminate excessive academic research. One example: Academics have written more than 26,000 articles on Shakespeare since 1980. Teaching costs rise when professors spend an inordinate time on marginal research.

11. Streamline programs. States can no longer afford empire building, particularly at the graduate level. Tennessee, for instance, maintained 24 doctoral programs in 2009 with fewer than three graduates.

12. Promote collaborative purchasing. Colleges should band together to increase their bargaining power with suppliers.

13. Make better use of facilities. Schools should explore renting facilities—maybe even to departments—and utilizing space during off hours.

14. Increase teaching loads. Between 1988 and 2004, faculty-teaching loads at research universities dropped 42 percent.

15. Encourage timely completion of degrees. Most students don't graduate in four years, and the dropout rate is a national scandal.

16. Move more classes online. The most logical classes for online instruction are large introductory courses.

[see how online education offers access and affordability.]

17. Reduce textbook costs. Book rentals and electronic versions of books can help.

18. Downsize academic libraries. Do we really need to warehouse books in massive libraries when they can be digitized?

19. Outsource E-mail services. Technology companies like Google and Microsoft can undercut the costs of in-house campus E-mail.

20. Use new teaching methods. Increase online instruction and incorporate more technology into traditional classrooms.

21. Make transferring credits easier. Seamless transfers between colleges can make schools more competitive and reduce dropout rates.

22. Reform student aid. The student aid system is confusing, inefficient, and frequently doesn't direct aid to those who need it most.

[Get advice on how to pay for college.]

23. Reform accreditation. Accreditation of schools may need to be replaced by transparency of the quality—or lack of quality—at individual institutions.

24. Subsidize students not schools. Rather than state and federal governments subsidizing universities, give the subsidy to students in the form of vouchers. This would make schools more cost conscience and prod institutions into becoming student centered.

25. Promote competition based on value not reputation. Colleges have an incentive to spend more because reputation is a factor in college rankings. Making student outcomes known could reduce the overdependence on rankings and also put a brake on costs.

[BigRedBuster]

Are you quite sure the AEI president was talking about targeted tax breaks to spur particular industries only? That doesn't jive with the grand Paul Ryan vision that I believe AEI full-throatedly endorses.

 

Free tuition to lower income students does nothing to drive down costs for them? Are we still honestly talking about expanding higher education access to the poor? Because "reform tenure" and "cut unnecessary programs" doesn't do it. At least, one author's column is in no way an expression of your policy proposal. (I'm not the biggest fan of Bernie's approach, either, to be fair. I think there are probably bigger priorities.)

 

So let's talk about a two-pronged approach. I'm on board with ideas like "proper regulatory balance" and encouraging small businesses in conjunction with social welfare programs and universal healthcare. But the Republican argument has always been "...and by the way, completely gut entitlement spending." This is by definition not a two-pronged approach. This has *always* been an advocacy for dismantling the latter, with the sheer fantasy that the former will make up for it. Look at the Obama years, though -- coming off a deregulation-induced financial crisis, no less. Did small businesses wither in that environment?

 

I'm starting to feel like you wouldn't agree with this guy when it comes down to actual policy.

I hope everyone realizes that one hell of a lot of poor kids get free educations already simply based on need based scholarships. If you grow up in Nebraska an don't have a pot to piss in, if you have the grades to get into UNL, you can go either free or dirt cheep.

[zoogs]

Yeah, kind of the reason I think there's bigger fish to fry. To be fair to Bernie, I don't know his proposal in this area especially well. On the surface it seems like the sort of thing that costs a lot and benefits mostly people who are doing alright already.

 

With education and poverty specifically, I think we want to attack the problem as upstream as possible. Having the grades to get into your state's flagship university is something the impoverished comparatively don't have access to. I recall hearing about a short-lived study in (Canada?...I think) that illustrated how UBI addresses this, for example by reducing the pressure for children in these families to shoulder the financial burden when they should be focusing more on their schoolwork. Education is part of the reason why poverty is a trap that transcends generations.

[BigRedBuster]

Yeah, kind of the reason I think there's bigger fish to fry. To be fair to Bernie, I don't know his proposal in this area especially well. On the surface it seems like the sort of thing that costs a lot and benefits mostly people who are doing alright already.

 

With education and poverty specifically, I think we want to attack the problem as upstream as possible. Having the grades to get into your state's flagship university is something the impoverished comparatively don't have access to. I recall hearing about a short-lived study in (Canada?...I think) that illustrated how UBI addresses this, for example by reducing the pressure for children in these families to shoulder the financial burden when they should be focusing more on their schoolwork. Education is part of the reason why poverty is a trap that transcends generations.

Unless you are talking about really extreme poverty, I think this is a cop out excuse.

 

Being in a C1 size school, we have the privilege of knowing most kids in our own children's class. It is a wide range from very well off to very poor. Those very poor kids are in school every day sitting in class right along with other kids. The school gives them a computer to go home with. They aren't skipping school to go to a job. Do some have jobs after school? Sure....and other kids have maybe sports after school that's taking up study time.

 

Just one (of many) examples of this is a neighbor girl of ours. Absolutely a wonderful girl who grew up in a single family home with her dad. He had a job that didn't pay well at all. She graduated in the top three of her class and went to Nursing at UNL/UNMC for free.

 

Now, are there issues that need to be addressed with many kids? Sure. But, when we start blaming coming from a poor family on why a kid can't sit in class and learn the same stuff a rich kid does. If they don't come to school ready to do that, one hell of a lot of time that's a problem with parenting. And...you see bad parenting in all economic classes.

[BigRedBuster]

Oooppppsss...no idea why that ended up in this thread.

[zoogs]

I'm talking about "extreme" poverty, I guess. The places where schoolkids don't range from the very well off to the very poor. But even there...

 

It's absolutely not a cop out excuse. When kids are having to shoulder the financial burden of their families while in high school, they don't have the luxury of focusing on their schoolwork. Not the same thing as kids who do jobs for the sake of the experience, or have extracurricular activities they like to do before going home to economically stable households where, by the way, everyone's got health, vision, dental. It's not remotely the same playing field even when it's the same classroom.

 

The fact that there exist exceptional people who overcome their circumstances -- *that* is a copout excuse if it's used to justify nothing being done to address the problem as a whole. And by and large, bad economic situations translates to bad outcomes. On a macro level this isn't about "bad" individuals, though they're often at this point an extremely trite scapegoat (and a weak excuse to debilitate government help programs). These people started with relatively little chance and their global outcomes bear that out. Lift up their economic situation and the outcomes will follow.

 

I also don't mind if the QB takes the checkdown. Take what's there

[TGHusker]

Oooppppsss...no idea why that ended up in this thread.

Perhaps a different thread

[TGHusker]

 

Oooppppsss...no idea why that ended up in this thread.

Perhaps a different thread

 

Your copy and paste fingers are moving faster than your brain today!! Or maybe there is a deeper meaning that is relative to this education thread

[BigRedBuster]

From what I have seen of "extreme poverty", at least as it pertains to Nebraska. The issue is more with the fact many parents don't stress the importance of an education and doing the right things. That means behaving and not getting in trouble...etc. It doesn't take money for a parent to teach their kid they need to respect teachers...etc. It doesn't take money to get through their thick scull that an education is important.

 

Sorry, you have hit on a sore subject with me since I am fairly close to our local educational system. I have sat on several committees to try to improve our school system. When you have a kid who comes to school unprepared while their mom or dad or both have sat down at the bar till 1:00am on a Tuesday night.....sorry, that's not because they are poor. And...before you go off on me, I fully understand this doesn't encompass all poor people.

 

Now, I believe there needs to be something we can do to help kids like that. These are kids that could be doing amazingly well but their parents are pieces of sh#t.

 

Here's an idea. It amazes me the number of employees we lose because the courts have caught up with them and have garnished their wages for child support. So, this piece of crap is willing to jump in the sack with a woman, get her pregnant and then spend the next 18 years jumping from job to job constantly starting over at entry level pay for no other purpose than to get out of paying child support. We've got to get better at forcing men like this to take their responsibility serious.

 

One of my son's basketball team mates has parents like this. His mom has 5 kids.....from 5 dads. She doesn't raise the kids....this 18 year old senior in HS has raised his younger siblings. Meanwhile, he is getting pretty decent grades, was a starter in football and basketball. Is planning on going to college and shows up to events looking very professional and excited to be there. I have all the respect in the world for this kid.

 

These situations aren't here because there isn't jobs or that those jobs don't pay well enough.

 

 

 

 

 

I got way off track here on a rant that probably ended up not having much to do with what I was responding to. I'll go back to normal programing now....sorry.

[zoogs]

Sure, I would say that income isn't a sole indicator of stability either. I grew up in Head Start and had reduced lunch prices through a good part of elementary school because we were low income. But this was one person working a STEM postdoc trying to support a young family. Of course he wasn't drowning his sorrows out at a bar. Different scenario, same income? Maybe he does.

 

It could have been the deal that we were stuck at that level all the way through my schooling, for example. Maybe then my mom can't spend most of her time at home making sure I'm on track. Maybe then I can't spend most of my time in high school working on classes and relaxing because I have to be worried about helping put food on the table. I did okay, but if we were all under those kinds of stresses I would likely have ended up a very poor, or at least very mediocre student, with a lot more upheaval and uncertainty at home. In which case I'm not sitting here inveighing against Paul Ryan or the AEI because I'm busy perpetuating the cycle.

 

This is what I mean by access to opportunity. So for me, it all comes back to circumstance. Relieving financial burdens isn't the end all, but it will go a long way. Not for everyone, but I'm not about to let the percentage of people who will waste it get in the way of advocating for policy that ultimately will uplift and enable access to a lot more people whose lives are currently constrained away from it.

 

In the end, we want people to succeed or fail on their own merits, right? So lift them up to where they have this opportunity, and understand that not everyone is going to succeed. That's OK.

[BigRedBuster]

Sure, I would say that income isn't a sole indicator of stability either. I grew up in Head Start and had reduced lunch prices through a good part of elementary school because we were low income. But this was one person working a STEM postdoc trying to support a young family. Of course he wasn't drowning his sorrows out at a bar. Different scenario, same income? Maybe he does.

 

It could have been the deal that we were stuck at that level all the way through my schooling, for example. Maybe then my mom can't spend most of her time at home making sure I'm on track. Maybe then I can't spend most of my time in high school working on classes and relaxing because I have to be worried about helping put food on the table. I did okay, but if we were all under those kinds of stresses I would likely have ended up a very poor, or at least very mediocre student, with a lot more upheaval and uncertainty at home. In which case I'm not sitting here inveighing against Paul Ryan or the AEI because I'm busy perpetuating the cycle.

 

This is what I mean by access to opportunity. So for me, it all comes back to circumstance. Relieving financial burdens isn't the end all, but it will go a long way. Not for everyone, but I'm not about to let the percentage of people who will waste it get in the way of advocating for policy that ultimately will uplift and enable access to a lot more people whose lives are currently constrained away from it.

 

In the end, we want people to succeed or fail on their own merits, right? So lift them up to where they have this opportunity, and understand that not everyone is going to succeed. That's OK.

I'm probably not understanding the bolded sentence. I take it you grew up in a single family house with a father who had a post doctorate degree in STEM.....am I understanding that?