Mattea Kramer
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March 5, 2014
President Obama released a $3.9 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2015 on Tuesday. The president’s budget contains initiatives that would be widely popular with the American people, according to opinion polls, including job training, education, and closing corporate tax loopholes. However, the president still favors expanding military spending – even as we withdraw from Afghanistan and research suggests that the American people do not approve of devoting an astonishing 57 percent of discretionary spending to the military. Here are the top five things to know about Obama's budget: 1...
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September 4, 2013
The good news is that this summer, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together to pass legislation that lowers rates for students borrowing to pay for college this year. The bad news? The legislation will increase the cost of higher education for college students in the future . Back on July 1 the interest rate for new federal student loans doubled, jumping from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Student organizations and advocacy groups worked tirelessly to convince lawmakers to maintain the 3.4 percent rate. The legislation that ultimately passed did bring the rate back down—to 3.9...
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March 14, 2013
5. Rep. Paul Ryan and the House would make deep cuts in spending, in large part by reducing programs for low-income families Rep. Ryan proposes $5.7 trillion in spending cuts to be implemented over 10 years. Similar to his budget last year, these cuts target programs that benefit low-income families: Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell Grants are among those slated for cuts. Discretionary spending – which includes general education programs and safety-net measures like the WIC nutrition program for women and children – would also see cuts in Rep. Ryan's plan to balance the budget in 10 years...
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February 27, 2013
By now you've heard that federal budget cuts will take effect on Friday. And you've heard the strange-sounding name for these cuts: sequestration. Sequestration means across-the-board spending cuts, and this sequester was written into law in August 2011 as a kind of terrible incentive for lawmakers to pass a long-term deficit reduction plan. No one thought the cuts would actually take effect, but now – it is near certain – they will, and the fallout will reach all of us. For instance. Fewer law enforcement officials in your neighborhood, reduced efforts to keep drinking water safe, longer...
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November 20, 2012
You've heard the term "fiscal cliff" and you've heard about how lawmakers in Washington can't agree on spending or taxes. But here's what you probably haven't heard: The federal budget negotiations happening right now may result in deep cuts to programs that benefit the next generation of Americans -- the young people who are this country's future. Kamau Akabueze/ flickr With collaborators at the great organization Young Invincibles , my team at National Priorities Project recently published a groundbreaking report called A Fight for the Future: Education, Job Training, and the Fiscal...
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November 14, 2012
They don’t call it the "cliff” for nothing. It’s the fiscal spot where a nation’s representatives can gather and cry doom. It’s the place -- if Washington is to be believed -- where, with a single leap into the Abyss of Sequestration, those representatives can end it all for the rest of us. In the wake of President Obama’s electoral victory, that cliff (if you’ll excuse a mixed metaphor or two) is about to step front and center. The only problem: the odds are no one will leap, and remarkably little of note will actually happen. But since the headlines are about to scream “crisis,” what you...
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October 3, 2012
The U.S. education system is what made this country prosperous in the twentieth century -- but no longer. Perhaps no issue is more urgent than this, yet for all the talk of teacher’s unions and testing, real education programs, ideas that will matter, are nonexistent this election season. Flickr/ Joe Shlabotnik During the last century, the best education system in the world allowed this country to grow briskly and lift standards of living. Now, from kindergarten to college, public education is chronically underfunded. Scarcely 2% of the federal budget goes to education, and dwindling public...
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August 20, 2012
Patrick Pylvainen grew up in a small town outside Minneapolis. The Minnesotan college student has seven siblings, so he borrows money for his tuition — Stafford loans from the federal government, plus loans from private banks that require interest payments while he's still in school. Now, those more affordable federal loans are in jeopardy. The cascade of federal budget cuts expected to begin in January would slash every single program the government classifies as "discretionary," including funding for education. That's heartbreaking, since public investment in education was a driving force...
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July 24, 2012
This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website and Mother Jones . We're at the edge of the cliff of deficit disaster! National security spending is being, or will soon be, slashed to the bone! Obamacare will sink the ship of state! Each of these claims has grabbed national attention in a big way, sucking up years' worth of precious airtime. That's a serious bummer, since each of them is a spending myth of the first order. Let's pop them, one by one, and move on to the truly urgent business of a nation that is indeed on the edge. Spending Myth 1: Today's deficits have taken us to a...
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