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Romneys Big Lie
Mitt Romney opened the general election campaign last night in Manchester, New Hampshire, using his acceptance speech to unleash a fierce attack on Barack Obama's "false promises and failed leadership."
Progressive Breakfast - 4/25/2012
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Don't Kick College Grads In The Teeth
Progressive Breakfast
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Don't Kick College Grads In The Teeth
Student-Debt Free At Last
When I graduated from high school, my parents expected that I would go to college. I say "expected," but it was really closer to a demand than an expectation. As my father said, "I don't know where you'll go, but you're going to somebody's university." Education was a high priority in our home. Even though neither of my parents went to college, they saw a college degree as the first step towards a "good job" and upward mobility.
We were comfortably middle class. So, I didn't qualify for much in the way of financial aid. But my parents could not afford to foot the entire bill for my education, even at the public university I chose to attend. My grades were good enough to get me a few scholarships to make that first year easier, but that was it. Like a lot people, I financed my education through student loans.
I was 18-years-old when I went into debt to get an education — as an investment in my future. That was over twenty years ago. Last year, at the age of forty-two, I finally paid off that debt.
Getting an education shouldn't mean decades of crushing debt. Tell Congress to stop student loan interest rates from doubling.
Dont Let Congress Kick College Grads In The Teeth
Here’s the real debt crisis: student loan debt. Today, the average student graduates from college with a diploma and an anchor — $25,000 of debt.
And if Congress doesn’t act, student loan interest rates will double on July 1.
Medicare and Social Security Fact vs Myth
In the coming days and weeks we'll be hearing a lot of misinformation about the Trustees Report from the Social Security Administration. It's time to separate the myths from the realities:
Myth: "Social Security and Medicare have a cost problem."
We Need Bold Steps To Make College Affordable
The White House has ramped up its efforts this week for congressional action to prevent interest rates on the Stafford federal college loan program, now at 3.4 percent, from doubling on July 1.
Snapshots of Austerity Desperation
When Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos, in his statement concerning the austerity-driven suicide of 77-year-old pensioner Dimitris Christoulas, called on Greeks to "support those next to us who stand in despair," he either missed or ignored the same point that austerity boosters here at home blithely ignore. How can people "support those who stand next to us in despair," when so many have already reached that last stop before oblivion, and those who haven't yet are being driven there down a wide road called "Desperation"?
What else is Papademos — appointed to ensure that Greeks got austerity, and got little or no say in the matter — to do? He's there to make sure the people he really works for get what they want. So, the prime minister has to ignore that Greece's Independence Day celebrations required tight security — such that citizens were banned from entering Syntagma Square the very square where Dimitris Christoulas put a bullet in his brain — because of very real fears that anti-austerity protesters would attack politicians. He has to ignore the reason why 4,000 police officers (plus more than 800 riot police) had to lock down the city of Athens, to ensure things went off without a hitch.
Just as his government ignored the tens of thousands of protestors on its doorstep, to pass he austerity measures, had to recognize the despair inherent in Dimitris Christoulas' suicide while ignoring the desperation that drove him to it, and how austerity has made desperation part of every day life for many Greeks.
Snapshots of Austerity Despair
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
When
Progressive Breakfast - 4/24/2012
MORNING MESSAGE: There Still Is No Social Security Crisis
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