Tag: Government budget balance

Trump 2.0: Prepare for the further dumbing down of America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

No, it’s not Communism! It’s the privatization of education. “School choice” takes away from government spending for public schools!

Source

Trump Chooses Longtime Ally Linda McMahon to Run Education Dept.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.

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In part because of her recent policy role and her experience as the small business administrator, Ms. McMahon had been discussed as a possible pick to lead the Commerce Department until the role was officially offered to Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street executive and a chairman of the Trump transition team, earlier in the day.

Ms. McMahon will be in charge of overseeing what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions, as Mr. Trump and many of those in his orbit have questioned the agency’s purpose and disparaged its work as overregulating schools on political and ideological terms.

Other than a brief appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year, Ms. McMahon has no experience in overseeing education policy. She would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.

While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for an outright dissolution of the agency, any effort to shutter it would require congressional action and support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts depend on federal aid for public education.

But the America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding “school choice” programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.

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[2012] The Demise of Higher Education in the United States

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The United States has experienced two major growth spurts in higher education. In 1862, the Morrill Act changed the face of higher education will by granting each state 30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative. Sale of the land was intended to create an endowment fund for the support of colleges in each of the states. Prior to the creation of the land-grant colleges, higher education was predominantly intended for wealthy students and those intending to serve as clergy. The land-grant colleges expanded higher education to different regions and a different class of students. This expansion, however, was still incomplete.

The Demise of Higher Education in the United States

Previously:

The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create a Dangerous “Educated Proletariat”

The Powell Memo Revisited

Front Organizations

France, a Nation On The Edge After Government’s Pension Reforms Bypass Democratic Process

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
“HE’S ONLY DOING SHIT” – Apple Translate.

France, a Nation on the Edge.

French President Emmanuel Macron rammed a controversial pension reform through parliament without a vote by invoking a special executive measure. With the opposition braced for a no-confidence vote and the unions threatening more strikes, France witnessed a dramatic week in politics.

France, a Nation On The Edge After Government’s Pension Reforms Bypass Democratic Process: Macron Uses Executive Order To Push Bill Through

What if Russia Won the Ukraine War but the Western Press Didn’t Notice?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

The level of creative story-telling about Russia’s progress in the Ukraine War has reached the point where the scenario below is not entirely impossible. Sadly yours truly lacks the literary skills to execute a Philip K. Dick rendering of this sketch:

What if Russia Won the Ukraine War but the Western Press Didn’t Notice?

Related:

Erich Vad: What are the war aims?

Rail strikes: RMT chief Mick Lynch says Sir Keir Starmer must ‘cosy up to working class people’ to be effective in Opposition + UK Truss government delivers class war budget

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Rail strikes: RMT chief Mick Lynch says Sir Keir Starmer must ‘cosy up to working class people’ to be effective in Opposition

Video via Labour Heartlands

Related:

UK Truss government delivers class war budget

Soaring energy bills ‘price worth paying’ to stand up to Putin, says Liz Truss

Will you get insulin-cost relief from the inflation bill? Not if you have private insurance

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Will you get insulin-cost relief from the inflation bill? Not if you have private insurance

But an out-of-pocket cap identical to that for Medicare was stripped from the bill for those with private insurance because Democrats are trying to pass the bill by a simple majority through the reconciliation process. That requires Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough to vet the provisions. She said most of the health-related features were fine, but the insulin proposal for those who have private insurance, not Medicare, violated the Byrd provision, which says that issues “extraneous to the federal budget” cannot be passed by simple majority through reconciliation.

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Out-of-pocket spending for those with Part D Medicare drug coverage will be capped at $2,000 a year.

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In 2024, a 5% coinsurance payment that now kicks in after someone reaches the catastrophic drug spending level of $7,050 in Medicare will end. Because drug companies set their own prices, 5% on expensive drugs can be a lot of money.

Related:

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