Social Policy Archives - Page 11 of 14 - Progressive Policy Institute

Student Debt Investment Fund (SDIF): A Preliminary Proposal for Addressing the Student Debt Crisis

Posted on March 5, 2013 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Progressive Policy Institute proposes the creation of a new, private sector Student Debt Investment Fund (“SDIF”) that would address the student debt crisis. The proposed SDIF would act as a secondary market for student loan debt, capitalized by corporate profits currently held abroad. In return, participating U.S. corporate entities would receive tax credits. The SDIF would purchase existing student loans, apply a discount to the loan amount, and restructure the loan through refinancing the debt.

By matching need for financial relief with available investment funds, the proposed SDIF could be a private sector solution to a public problem. Without action, the student debt crisis will be the next financial disaster. One in five households is currently saddled with student debt, now over $1 trillion, which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy or refinanced at today’s historically low interest rates. At the same time, multinational U.S.-based companies are sitting on an estimated $2 trillion in cash reserves, much of it profits held abroad. Companies are unwilling to repatriate these profits under current tax law for fear of excessive financial penalties.

Societal benefits of the proposed SDIF include: (1) deflating the student debt bubble slowly, (2) facilitating economic growth by freeing financial resources for millions of young Americans, (3) enabling more young people to invest in their human capital, and (4) providing a way for U.S. corporate entities to invest their excess funds in America strategically and promote public well-being. The benefits to business include tax credits issued annually over the term of the investment and the potential for an annual return on investment depending on the success of the SDIF. The benefits to government include transferred risk to the private sector from reduced student loan exposure and potential tax revenue that would not have been received otherwise.

Download the policy proposal.

Democratic Devolution: How America’s Colleges and Universities Can Strengthen Their Communities

Posted on October 1, 2012 by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the face of a deepening economic and political crisis, the U.S. political and governing system is deadlocked. We need a new way forward. The old and tired government versus markets debate is just that—old and tired. It’s time for a broader mobilization of America’s civic resources, including the nonprofit sector and especially our colleges and universities.

We see government as a catalyst that stimulates new forms of interaction and partnerships between all sectors of society. Based on our experience at the University of Pennsylvania, we believe government should challenge all institutions of higher education (public and private; community colleges, colleges, and universities) to contribute systematically to improving the quality of life and learning in their local communities.

When called to service (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) young people have answered the call. Each year, more than 75,000 citizens serve through AmeriCorps alone. But it is not enough to simply call upon college students to serve. Rather, government should challenge institutions of higher education, as well as students, to make a greater contribution to the public good.

America’s colleges and universities represent immense concentrations of human and economic capital (with nearly four million employees, 20 million enrolled students, $400 billion in endowments, and $1 trillion in annual economic activity). As “anchor institutions,” they have the potential to be sources of stability and permanence in civic partnerships with government and the private sector to revitalize local communities. For colleges and universities to fulfill their great potential and more effectively contribute to positive change in their communities, cities, and metropolitan areas, however, they will have to critically examine and change their organizational cultures and structures and embed civic engagementacross all components of the institution. Through more effectively targeting existing resources, as well as utilizing both modest financial incentives and the bully pulpit, the federal government can stimulate colleges and universities to realize their stated—but not fully realized—mission of service to society.

To realize this potential, we recommend a five-part strategy:

First, Congress should create a new federal commission—comprised of local, state, and national government officials along with leaders from the private sector and higher education—to forge civic partnerships with the nation’s institutions of higher education;

Second, the commission should develop innovative strategies for integrating federal programs and funding streams, as well as aligning federal efforts with these new local civic partnerships that involve colleges and universities;

Third, the commission should promote regional consortia of higher educational institutions to significantly and effectively improve schooling and community life;

Fourth, the federal government should create prestigious Presidential Awards for outstanding Higher Education-Civic Partnerships, and;

Fifth, government should provide support to colleges and universities based on the “Noah Principle”—funding given only for building arks (producing real change), not for predicting rain (describing the problems that exist and will develop if actions are not taken).

Download the memo.

Election Watch: Akin’s Flap May Doom GOP Senate Takeover Chances

Posted on August 24, 2012September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s a rare event when a Senate contest affects a presidential campaign—or indeed, an entire election cycle. But for the moment, that’s what seems to have happened in Missouri, thanks to freshly minted GOP nominee Todd Akin’s witless talk about abortion and rape, and his determination (so far) to stay in the race despite threats and importuning from practically the entire Republican Party and conservative movement (with the exception of a few Christian Right colleagues). Most immediately, Akin’s big mistake has demolished what Republicans thought to be their most promising Senate takeover opportunity this year. Shortly after his primary win over two other major conservative opponents earlier this month, Akin, long considered the weakest of the available candidates, had already opened up a big lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill, and was beginning to consolidate conservative support very rapidly. Now a new Rasmussen poll (of all things!) shows McCaskill up by ten points, with Akin’s favorable/unfavorable ratio at a disastrous 35/53 level.

No one but Akin himself can get the wounded candidate off the ballot at this point, and with the deadline for an easy withdrawal and replacement by the state party having already passed, it would be complicated to make the switch, aside from the depleted resources, hurt feelings and late start a new nominee would inherit. So we are now in the midst of a game of “chicken” in which Akin may still believe the state and national GOP will relent and support his candidacy once the current furor has ended, and Republicans will undoubtedly keep the pressure on to convince him he’s throwing away a Senate seat and the good will of the party forever and ever. My money’s on an eventual withdrawal, but the hard-core public support he’s gotten to hang tough from Mike Huckabee, a pretty formidable figure in the GOP and a potential 2016 presidential candidate, is an important counterweight to that temptation. Another factor will be whether grassroots Christian Right forces around the country embrace Akin as a martyr to their ban-abortion-with-no-exceptions cause, and provide him with the money to run a credible campaign without the party, 501(c)(4) and super PAC funds he’s been denied. Continue reading “Election Watch: Akin’s Flap May Doom GOP Senate Takeover Chances” →

Election Watch: Democrats and Republicans Elated By Romney/Ryan Ticket

Posted on August 17, 2012September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Without question, the big election-related event of the last week was the surprising announcement—both its content and its timing, before the Summer Olympics had ended—of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running-mate. I cannot recall any such event that (a) had so pervasive an immediate impact on the party in question’s general election strategy, and (b) was welcomed with such joy by activists in both parties.

The two dimensions of the choice are closely related. Whatever else you think of Romney/Ryan, this ticket represents a large strategic concession to the Obama campaign, which has been struggling all year to convert the election from a referendum on the economy to a choice of two future agendas for the country. Indeed, Romney’s promise that he would sign the Ryan Budget if passed by Congress was exhibit A in that effort. With Ryan on the ticket itself, and drawing enormous media attention for his views, the Obama campaign can declare “mission accomplished” in its most fundamental strategic mission (which is not to say, of course, that the “referendum” phenomenon has gone away entirely or that a downward lurch in the economy between now and November 6 might not be disastrous).

But the excitement of conservative activists about Ryan reflects their own unhappiness with the “referendum” strategy, not to mention their fears that Romney (a) might not be reliable if he wins, and (b) might not have a mandate to carry out the policies they desire. I’ve argued before that one of Romney’s problems is that he’s never quite ended the GOP primaries. The choice of Ryan achieves that objective decisively, and could give the GOP campaign slightly more tactical flexibility that it would otherwise enjoy. Continue reading “Election Watch: Democrats and Republicans Elated By Romney/Ryan Ticket” →

Election Watch: Campaign Attacks Heat Up with Conventions Around the Corner

Posted on August 10, 2012September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

With the national political conventions right around the corner, both presidential campaigns have become notably more aggressive. The president, his super PAC and key surrogates have kept up a regular drumbeat of attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, his identification with wealthy Americans, and his refusal to release tax returns. The Romney campaign’s latest gambit has been an ad claiming that Obama has “gutted” the 1996 welfare reform law and is now in favor of sending unconditional cash assistance to recipients.

Both campaigns have also continued the habit of loudly crying “foul” against opposition tactics. The Romney campaign and the conservative commentariat have become almost unhinged over the taunting of their candidate by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has repeatedly claimed a (unnamed) reliable source privately told him Romney’s hiding a decade of paying little or no federal taxes. It’s become axiomatic on the Right that Reid is simply making it all up, while some Democrats busily speculate about the possible identity of Reid’s source (with the Huntsman family of Utah, which has many close connections with Romney and with Bain Capital, and is also friendly with Reid, being the most common guess). Romney’s “welfare ad,” which tries to turn an agency announcement that the administration would entertain waiver requests from states into some sort of unilateral abolition of work requirements, gained a quick denunciation from former President Clinton, whose image is in the ad, and from welfare policy specialists in both parties.

It has been widely assumed that the “softening up” of Romney via a focus on his character and business record would soon give way to an all-out Democratic assault on the Ryan Budget and other controversial GOP policies, but the personal lines of attack, having exhibited some signs of success in undermining the candidate’s personal favorability ratings, are lingering on. Obama’s new catch-phrase “Romney Hood” represents one way his campaign is seeking to cross the bridge from biography to policy. Continue reading “Election Watch: Campaign Attacks Heat Up with Conventions Around the Corner” →

Simply False: Mitt Romney’s Cynical Welfare Nostalgia

Posted on August 10, 2012September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI’s Will Marshall, with years of experience in welfare reform during the Clinton years, criticized the false attacks by the Romney campaign on the Obama administration’s so called “dismantling” of work requirements to receive welfare. In his article in the Daily Beast, Marshall explains how Romney’s cynical politics are “simply false.”

Republicans really miss welfare—the issue, not the program.

For decades, they used it to drive a wedge between Democrats and white working-class voters. But the GOP had no choice but to drop “welfare queens” from its lexicon after President Bill Clinton signed a landmark bill in 1996 “ending welfare as we know it.”

Now Mitt Romney, running a thoroughly retro presidential campaign, is trying to bring the issue back to life. With all the subtlety and scrupulous regard for fact his campaign has shown in other attacks on President Obama—which is to say, absolutely none—it’s now accusing Obama of “unilaterally dismantling” the 1996 law by bureaucratic fiat.

What triggered this hyperbole was a Department of Health and Human Services decision last month to grant states waivers from federal welfare rules to help them cope with the effects of a prolonged economic slump. Liberals have had a field day noting that Romney’s attack on the HHS is doubly hypocritical: first because some Republicans were among the governors asking the agency for more flexibility, and second, because devolving decisions from Washington to the states is supposed to be a core principle for conservatives.

Proving once again that he does not fear the hobgoblins of inconsistency, Romney brushed such criticisms aside while stumping in Iowa on Wednesday. Instead, he accused the Obama administration of having “removed the requirement of work from welfare.”

That is simply false.

Read the entire article HERE.

America Turns Left On Social Issues, But Not On Government