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Democrats’ Plans to Tax Wealth Would Reshape U.S. Economy
Democrats’ Plans to Tax Wealth Would Reshape U.S. Economy
Proposals from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have raised concerns from economists and business leaders who fear the plans would sap economic growth.
WASHINGTON — Progressive Democrats are advocating the most drastic shift in tax policy in over a century as they look to redistribute wealth and chip away at the economic power of the superrich with new taxes that could fundamentally reshape the United States economy.
As they compete for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont have proposed wealth taxes that would shrink the fortunes of the richest Americans. Their plans envision an enormous transfer of money from the wealthy to ordinary people, with revenue from the wealth tax used to finance new social programs like tuition-free college, universal child care and “Medicare for all.”
The wealth taxes under discussion would deal a major blow to the balance sheets of American plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. If the tax that Ms. Warren has called for had been in place since 1982, the net worth of the 15 richest Americans in 2018 would have been half as much, according to two economists who helped develop her plan. The Sanders wealth tax, which was released last week, would have eroded their fortunes even further, to barely one-fifth of their 2018 total.
The idea of a wealth tax has become an animating issue for the Democratic Party, which sees it as a solution to long-festering concerns about inequality and the rapid concentration of economic power among wealthy Americans. Its emergence is also an antidote to the policies of President Trump, whose $1.5 trillion tax cut largely benefited rich Americans and corporations while leaving future generations with the bill.
[Bernie Sanders raised $25.3 million in the most recent fund-raising quarter, reflecting his continued strength with small-dollar donors.]
But the idea of redistributing wealth by targeting billionaires is stirring fierce debates at the highest ranks of academia and business, with opponents arguing it would cripple economic growth, sap the motivation of entrepreneurs who aspire to be multimillionaires and set off a search for loopholes.
“You’re going to completely disincentivize capital investment, which is going to be very, very bad for economic growth,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview in September. “Taxing capital is not a good thing for creating economic growth, and if anything we should be looking at how we create more incentives for economic growth.”
Income inequality has surged in the United States in the last 50 years, with the top 0.1 percent now controlling about a fifth of the nation’s wealth. That concentration of wealth has coincided with stagnant wages, rising college costs and the lingering effects of the Great Recession, which erased trillions of dollars in household wealth, ravaging the middle class. New figures from the Census Bureau released last week show that income inequality in the United States reached its highest level last year since the government began tracking it in 1967.
The dueling policy proposals from Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders come as they compete intensely for support among the same universe of liberal voters and activists. Their tax proposals are seen as critical to galvanizing and building support on the left, but their ideas will also provide fodder for Republicans eager to paint them in a general election as tax-happy and too far to the left.
Polls have found widespread support for the idea of taxing wealth. A poll conducted for The New York Times by the internet research firm SurveyMonkey this summer found that two-thirds of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, supported a 2 percent tax on households worth over $50 million, which is the heart of Ms. Warren’s plan.
The proposals for a wealth tax are among a variety of ideas for collecting more tax revenue that Democratic presidential candidates have put forward. On Monday, Mr. Sanders proposed a new tax on corporations that have a huge gap between what they pay their chief executive and their median worker. Jared Bernstein, who was chief economist for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. from 2009 to 2011, said he has discussed with the Biden campaign a proposal to tax financial transactions.
On the campaign trail, Ms. Warren explains the concept of a wealth tax by putting it in familiar terms, likening it to the property taxes that many Americans pay on their homes. For the superrich, she said in South Carolina on Saturday, “how about we include in yours not only your real estate, but also your stock portfolio, the diamonds, the Rembrandt and the yacht?”
Mr. Sanders is blunt about his desire to reduce the size of America’s biggest fortunes, even highlighting how much individual billionaires would have to pay in taxes under his proposal. He said last week that he did not believe billionaires should exist in the United States.
“There’s no question to my mind that the United States is moving toward an oligarchy,” Mr. Sanders said. “This is an issue that has to be addressed, and this wealth tax begins to do that.”
The United States largely taxes individuals based on the income they earn through their jobs and investments. Wealth taxes impose annual levies on an individual’s accumulated assets, everything from vacation homes and art collections to stakes in companies and family heirlooms.
The tax proposed by Ms. Warren would apply to households worth over $50 million. She would impose a 2 percent tax on net worth above $50 million, and a 3 percent tax on net worth above $1 billion.
The plan from Mr. Sanders would apply to a larger number of households, and it would be particularly aggressive on billionaires. His tax would start out at 1 percent on net worth from $32 million to $50 million, and it would top out at 8 percent on net worth over $10 billion.
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the two University of California, Berkeley, economists who helped Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders develop their plans, project that Ms. Warren’s proposal would hit about 70,000 households and generate $2.6 trillion in revenue for the federal government over a decade. They project that Mr. Sanders’s proposal would apply to 180,000 households and raise $4.35 trillion over 10 years.
Mr. Zucman said in an interview that he believes a wealth tax would have a modest but positive impact on growth. By reducing the power of the wealthiest, he argued, it would make markets more competitive and spur innovation.
But redirecting such vast sums could have unintended effects on the United States economy that go beyond promulgating economic fairness. While Ms. Warren ticks off the social programs that can be funded if the richest Americans pay just 2 cents on every dollar they have above $50 million — a number that is unimaginable to most Americans — skeptics warn of economic stagnation, depressed business confidence and a legal battle that would go to the Supreme Court.
At a conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution in September, N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economist, debated Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman about the merits of taxing wealth. Mr. Mankiw, the former head of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, offered a searing critique, arguing that a wealth tax would skew incentives that could alter when the superrich make investments, how they give to charity and even potentially spur a wave of divorces for tax purposes. He also noted that billionaires, with their legions of lawyers and accountants, have proven to be experts at gaming the system to avoid even the most onerous taxes.
“On the one hand it’s a bad policy, and then the other thing is it’s a feckless policy,” Mr. Mankiw said.
Left-leaning economists have expressed their own doubts about a wealth tax. Earlier this year, Lawrence Summers, who was President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, warned in an article with Natasha Sarin, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, that wealth taxes would sap innovation by putting new burdens on entrepreneurial businesses while they are starting up. In their view, a country with more millionaires is a sign of economic vibrancy.
“Turning the tax code into a vehicle for confronting what some call ‘oligarchic drift’ would undermine business confidence, reduce investment, degrade economic efficiency and punish success in ways unlikely to be good for the country or even to be appealing to most Americans,” they wrote.
Corporate America has also come out against a wealth tax. At a recent briefing by the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for large companies, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said he feared that the federal government would squander the additional revenue.
“I know a lot of wealthy people who would be happy to pay more in taxes; they just think it’ll be wasted and be given to interest groups and stuff like that,” Mr. Dimon said.
Other obstacles that often raise concern about wealth taxes are how to value assets like art and private businesses when determining wealth, and the potential impact on stock markets if rich shareholders suddenly have to liquidate their holdings to pay their tax bills.
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Despite the many obstacles, a wealth tax in the United States could prove to be a political winner for Democrats and serve as a rejoinder to Mr. Trump, who has allowed deficits to swell by cutting taxes without curbing spending.
Ms. Warren makes a point of stressing she is not looking to punish the rich, and she presents the tax as quite modest: just 2 cents on every dollar over $50 million in net worth. That 2-cent tax — which rises to 3 cents on net worth over $1 billion — amounts to a golden key that unlocks other policy plans, covering the cost of proposals like student debt cancellation, free public college and universal child care.
Ms. Warren’s White House bid is the rare political campaign where a tax rate has become a catchy slogan: Crowds have broken out into chants of “2 cents!” and at a recent political event in Iowa, two of her campaign staffers dressed up as pennies.
“I think that what she does really brilliantly is takes a policy that’s really cumbersome and makes it really simple and straightforward,” Victoria Farris, 38, said after Ms. Warren gave a speech in New York in September. “You don’t have to be an economist, you don’t have to have an advanced degree — 2 cents is 2 cents.”
Nelson D. Schwartz contributed reporting from New York.
Source: US Government Class
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Surging support for impeachment tied directly to Trump’s reelection bid, pollster says
Washington Times – Support for beginning the impeachment process against President Trump has surged over the last week — and yet voters aren’t quite sure the president has done anything illegal.
Even more confounding is that voters still give Mr. Trump among his best job approval ratings since he took office in January 2017.
It’s an odd dichotomy that pollsters labored to explain, and it could go a long way toward determining whether House Democrats ultimately take the next step of drawing up articles of impeachment against the president.
The latest survey from CBS News on Sunday showed 55% of Americans support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s move last week to launch an impeachment inquiry, after new allegations that he sought to rope Ukraine’s government into investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden.
But only 41% say the president has broken the law with what he did.
GOP pollsters say those numbers are likely inflated against Mr. Trump. CBS polled residents rather than likely or even registered voters — the categories that matter when it comes to whether an issue has power at the ballot box.
Still, there’s little doubt the reluctance to contemplate impeachment, which long reigned in polling, has turned into a willingness to consider it.
Morning Consult/Politico’s tracking survey late last week, after the revelations, found 43% say it’s time to begin — up from 36% just a week earlier.
Support among Democrats grew by 13 percentage points, to about four out of five. But so did support among independents, who just a week ago were decidedly opposed, by a 13-point margin. Now they are in favor, 39% to 36%.
Even among Republicans, support for impeachment has grown, though at 10% it’s still not much of a factor.
Matt McDermott, a Democratic pollster, said Mrs. Pelosi’s reluctance to back impeachment had kept a lid on public support. Now her embrace has brought Democrats and some independents along.
“Not to be cliche, but voters are motivated by leaders who lead,” he said. “They want to feel that they’re making the ‘right choices’ politically. These types of cues from political leaders are important, and explain why we’re already seeing perception shifts around impeachment following the support of a formal inquiry by House leaders.”
He said particularly worrying for the GOP was the rise in support among independents. He said Republicans had expected independents to balk at impeachment, but there’s no sign yet of such a backlash.
Republican pollsters questioned the sampling decisions of some of the new polls, but also said they’re not surprised — nor worried — by the new impeachment support.
GOP pollster Michael McKenna said the impeachment question is essentially now the equivalent of asking whether Mr. Trump should be reelected.
He said there are still some voters who view impeachment seriously, but this near to the start of voting in Democratic primaries, for most the impeachment question is about whether to retain Mr. Trump in office rather than a look at whether he’s guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
“They may as well, when you ask about impeachment, ask ‘President Trump yes or no,’” Mr. McKenna said. “This is all about the campaign.”
Jim McLaughlin, a Trump campaign pollster, points to a survey he did earlier in September, before the latest impeachment developments, that asked whether voters wanted to see congressional Democrats focus on impeachment or legislating. Two-thirds said legislating.
He said that’s a good place for Mr. Trump to be — and it’s showing up in those job approval numbers, which are higher than they’ve been since the immediate days after he took office in 2017. In national polling, Mr. Trump is at about 45%, maintaining the level he’s been at since a bump after his State of the Union speech.
Mr. McLaughlin says his surveys are even better: “We’ve consistently had him about 47, 48% job approval.”
He said that rising approval spurred Democrats to go for impeachment. He also said there could be an element of preemption in that Democrats are worried about what the Justice Department’s investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the 2016 election will show, and impeachment is a preemptive strike.
“Once they saw the president’s numbers going up, they said ‘We gotta do something,’ so they made this thing up,” he said.
He predicted the impeachment push will serve to unify Republicans heading into 2020, consolidating Mr. Trump’s backers.
The millions of dollars the Trump campaign raised in the hours after Democrats announced their impeachment inquiry was the first tangible sign of that.
In CBS’s poll, 59% of Republicans said Mrs. Pelosi’s move makes them want to defend Mr. Trump. But a surprisingly strong 34% said they’re looking to see what develops. Just 7% suspect Mr. Trump of wrongdoing.
⦁ Alex Swoyer contributed to this report.
Source: US Government Class
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Scholarship plan stirs concerns about tuition hikes
Santa Fe New Mexican – High school and college administrators across New Mexico agree: If the state Legislature approves the scholarship plan recently announced by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, making tuition free for tens of thousands of in-state students, enrollment at public universities and community colleges will increase.
The governor’s proposal comes amid a continuing decline in students attending state schools, which already offer some of the lowest tuition rates in the nation.
This fall, the state’s flagship school, the University of New Mexico, has about 22,800 undergraduate and graduate students, a more than 16 percent drop from 2015, when enrollment was just over 27,300. The university’s enrollment decreased 6.5 percent between last fall and the current semester.
Some policymakers and other state officials worry, however, that demand for the proposed New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship will cause what the governor touted as a $25 million to $35 million annual initiative to become increasingly expensive and also could provide an incentive for institutions to raise their price tags.
“It’s pretty simple,” said Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Albuquerque. “You have a captured group of students who are financially incentivized very strongly to attend your small group of schools. You can raise your prices with relative impunity.
“It’s kind of a monopolistic situation as I can describe it,” Gessing said.
What the numbers say
Data shows a precedent.
The introduction of the more than 2-decade-old Legislative Lottery Scholarship program in New Mexico — which covered 100 percent of eligible students’ tuition until about five years ago, when the fund began to fall short of demand — was followed by increases in both enrollment and tuition costs.
Brian Malone, director of the student financial aid office at UNM, said that when the state launched the lottery scholarship, the university’s freshman class gained more than 1,000 students in two years, boosting enrollment from 1,658 in the fall of 1996 to 2,163 in 1997 and 2,669 in 1998.
When students began using the lottery scholarship in the 1997-98 school year, in-state tuition and fees for full-time students at UNM were $1,083 per semester, according to the school’s Office of Institutional Research. By fall 2007, tuition and fees had jumped to $2,285, an increase of $1,202, or 111 percent, over 10 years.
In comparison, between fall 2009 and the current semester — a 10-year period in which state Higher Education Deputy Secretary Carmen López-Wilson said the department has lost 30 percent of its state funding — the tuition and fees for full-time, in-state UNM students increased only 48 percent, to $3,778 from $2,550.
Higher education officials argue that tuition increases often are because of mandated salary hikes, higher utility bills, insurance costs and a number of other reasons not necessarily tied to state-sponsored scholarships.
But a 2014 report by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which examined lottery-funded scholarships in 44 states, found a link between such scholarships and rising tuition rates. Part of the reason for the rising tuition rates, the report said, is state funding cuts for higher education. The scholarship funds tend to replace, rather than supplement, state funding.
“States without lotteries, on the other hand, end up spending approximately 10 percent more of their budget on education than states with lottery funds earmarked for education,” the report said.
It cites other concerns with lottery profits creating a revenue stream for education — in particular, the unpredictability of the funding source, a problem New Mexico has wrangled with as well.
Funds for Lujan Grisham’s proposed Opportunity Scholarship would come from higher education appropriations from the state’s general fund and would kick in for eligible students after federal financial aid and the state’s Legislative Lottery Scholarship have been applied.
The lottery scholarship fund distributes about $40 million a year in aid from lottery ticket proceeds. While it began as 100 percent tuition program, a combination of higher demand for scholarships, rising tuition rates and declining lottery ticket sales eventually led to a shortfall in 2015, prompting lawmakers to decrease the amount each student received.
This school year, the lottery scholarship covers between 60 percent and 75 percent of tuition for some 16 percent of the state’s public college and university students.
Protections against tuition hikes
The Governor’s Office initially dismissed questions about whether the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship could lead to tuition increases and whether there are plans to ensure legislation on the proposal in the 2020 session will include language aimed at preventing hikes.
“There’s no feeling here of how an increase in an enrollment would necessarily lead to higher tuition,” spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said in an email. “And so I’d decouple those items.”
Kim Sanchez Rael, a member of the UNM Board of Regents, has been pondering the issue though.
“Certainly that scenario has crossed my mind,” she said, adding she hopes legislation on the scholarship includes safeguards against colleges and universities taking advantage of an increased market of students.
“I would think there would be some legislative restraint so the scholarship doesn’t become an excuse to play games with tuition and fees,” Sanchez Rael said. “In the way the legislation is crafted, there needs to be some rationale framework around how universities think about their budget in relation to tuition and fees.”
Responding to such concerns, Sackett said in a later email, “We are going to do absolutely everything we can as we draft this legislation and formalize this program to enshrine protections against unwarranted tuition increases.”
She added, “It’s premature to talk specifics of legislation that still needs to be negotiated but that will be of primary concern for us as we are committed to ensuring the expanded access provided by the scholarship.”
State Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, noted after the governor’s announcement of the scholarship proposal there’s no certainty the state’s recurring revenues will be sufficient to cover rising costs in future years.
“It’s a great idea,” he said of the Opportunity Scholarship, “but the devil is in the details. If we can increase enrollment and student outcomes, then that will be positive. The big concern is $25 million per year to grow into $45 million to grow into $65 million.”
Kathy Ulibarri, director of New Mexico Independent Community Colleges, a consortium of 10 schools that includes Santa Fe Community College, shared Smith’s concern.
“I think colleges are nervous because there will be some legitimate reason to raise tuition,” she said. “But we also want to make sure the scholarship stays financially viable for the state.”
She noted that tuition increases are often because of mandated pay raises.
“Even in years where the the Legislature appropriates compensation increases, they only partially fund it, expecting colleges and universities to raise tuition,” she said. “The question now is how do we make sure institutions are adequately funded for inflationary needs so we minimize the need to raise tuition?”
Sackett’s answer: “Part of keeping tuition rates low is making greater investments in higher education — NM HED’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes a 58% overall increase for that very reason,” she said in an email.
State Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, a member of the Senate Education Committee, said she hopes the Legislature can find an alternative revenue source for the Opportunity Scholarship, such as a sales tax, to support the fund.
“I believe what the governor proposed is workable,” Stewart said, “but I want to find a revenue stream dedicated to it.”
Referring to the student tuition fees that flow into colleges and universities, she said, “The previous administration cut funding because they knew universities had a revenue source that’s not available to K-12. It’s going to take some time to right our universities.
“In the meantime,” she added, “I still want to encourage students to go.”
Will it build a better workforce?
López-Wilson said the Opportunity Scholarship would have the same requirements as the lottery scholarship — eligible students would have to attend full time and maintain at least a 2.5 GPA. Students who use the scholarship at a four-year university would have to enroll within 16 months of graduation from high school or receipt of a GED diploma.
Students who graduated from high school more than 16 months before enrolling in higher education would be able to use the Opportunity Scholarship only at two-year community colleges.
State Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, a member of the House Education Committee, said she wants more strings attached to scholarships.
“We need more social workers and teachers and medical professionals who plan to work in New Mexico,” Dow said. “If there are no restraints or conditions on tuition, then these scholarships will never be enough.
“It’s building a workforce in New Mexico that interests me,” she said. “If it’s just giving money to colleges, that has not always worked out in the past.”
Source: US Government Class
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New Mexico senators press Trump administration on India pecan tariff
Santa Fe New Mexican – CARLSBAD — New Mexico’s U.S. senators want the Trump administration to defend the state’s pecan growers from tariffs during ongoing trade negotiations with India.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, both Democrats, recently signed on to a bipartisan letter from 12 senators urging U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to negotiate the lifting of a trade barrier, the Carlsbad Current-Argus reported.
The senators argued that rising imports from Mexico, Chinese tariffs and tree loss after Hurricane Michael strained U.S. pecan prices, and India’s growing middle class represents a market that could help minimize the economic damage.
“Gaining access to new markets for pecans will help stabilize the pecan markets while orchards are replanted, and a trade deal is negotiated with China,” the letter said.
Records show India charges a 36 percent tariff on pecan imports, while other tree nuts such as pistachios and almonds are charged tariff rates of 10 percent or less.
New Mexico became the largest pecan-producing state last year, after Hurricane Michael ravaged Georgia’s crop.
New Mexico was estimated to have produced about 90 million pounds of pecans in 2018, down about 2 million from 2017.
The pecan industry contributes more than $3.57 billion to the economies of the United States’ 15 pecan-producing states, with exports contributing about $1.25 billion in additional economic activity in rural America over the past decade, the senators’ letter said.
Trump did signal a purported allegiance with India during a rally Sunday in Houston, where he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expressed a desire to work with the country on trade.
“We are working to expand American exports to India — one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.” Trump said.
Modi said he looked forward to negotiations with the U.S. in the coming years.
Source: US Government Class
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Governor: N.M. will boost clean car standards to 52 mpg by 2022
Santa Fe New Mexican – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Tuesday that New Mexico will join 14 other states in adopting clean car standards requiring new cars sold in the state to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The new standards will raise the average fuel economy to 52 miles per gallon, compared with 37 miles per gallon under proposed federal rollbacks, the Governor’s Office said in a statement.
“To combat climate change, to keep New Mexico’s citizens safe, to protect the air we all breathe, it’s essential we adopt more stringent clean car standards that increase fuel economy and reduce emissions,” Lujan Grisham said in the statement. “It is environmentally and economically counterproductive to stall fuel economy standards as contemplated by the proposed federal rollbacks.”
The move comes after the Trump administration revoked California’s authority to set mileage standards stricter than federal standards. California and nearly two dozen other states, including New Mexico, sued the administration Friday over that decision.
On Tuesday, Lujan Grisham said President Donald Trump “threatens to rob New Mexico and indeed all states of a valuable tool for combating air pollution and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.”
The standards in New Mexico will be applied to new cars sold in the state beginning in model year 2022, the statement said.
The changes do not need legislative approval and will be put through the Environment Department’s regulatory process, a spokeswoman for the Governor’s Office said.
Environment Department Cabinet Secretary James Kenney said Tuesday the state will add incentives as it applies the new standards, such as for increasing the number of electric vehicles in state fleets and building infrastructure for electric vehicles.
The Governor’s Office said seven counties in the state are nearing “problematic ground-level ozone levels,” and pollution from transportation contributes significantly to those levels and greenhouse gas emissions.
In January, Lujan Grisham signed an executive order aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state by at least 45 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. The order also called for the development of a regulatory framework to “secure reductions in oil and gas sector methane emissions.”
The governor also has signed the U.S. Climate Alliance’s Clean Car Promise, a pact made by a coalition of governors aiming to fight climate change and meet Paris Agreement goals.
Lujan Grisham made her announcement Tuesday at Climate Week in New York City, where she participated in a panel with other state governors to discuss climate change.
Source: US Government Class
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Nancy Pelosi to make announcement after meeting with House Democrats — live stream
CBS News – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters she will be making an announcement after a caucus-wide meeting with House Democrats Tuesday, as more Democrats are voicing support for initiating impeachment proceedings against President Trump. They are pressing for an investigation of a call between Mr. Trump and the Ukrainian president during which Mr. Trump talked about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Pelosi also appeared at The Atlantic Festival at 2 p.m. in Washington for a conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine.
Speaking at the Atlantic Festival, Pelosi said about Mr. Trump’s call to the Ukrainian president that it is “self-evident that it was not right.”
The call is the subject of a whistleblower complaint from the intelligence community. The intelligence community inspector general found the complaint both credible and of “urgent concern.” As a result, it was supposed to be turned over to the House Intelligence Committee, but the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has declined to submit the complaint to the committee because he determined that it was not of urgent concern.
Since the completion of the Mueller report, Pelosi has been criticized by the more liberal members of her caucus for not moving forward with impeachment proceedings against President Trump. She has instead advised her caucus that the House needed to continue with various investigations into the president before considering impeachment. Even as more prominent Democrats have come out in support of opening an impeachment inquiry — most notably Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — Pelosi has shied away from saying that the House would commence impeachment proceedings.
Several Democrats, including many freshmen representatives who flipped Republican seats in the 2018 election, have announced their support for beginning impeachment proceedings amid media reports that Mr. Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden. Congressman John Lewis, an influential member of the House, also announced Tuesday that he supports beginning impeachment proceedings.
At least one week before Mr. Trump spoke with Zelensky in late July, he instructed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold off on releasing nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine that had already been appropriated by Congress, CBS News’ Major Garrett confirmed. Ultimately, the White House released the funds to Ukraine in September, after withholding the aid for about two months.
Source: US Government Class
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New Mexico prepares for census count with new hires
Santa Fe New Mexican – As a field organizer knocking on doors for presidential and state government campaigns, Lynn Trujillo was assigned to neighborhoods in Sandia Pueblo, where she grew up. Some of the homes on the voter list provided by campaigns were no longer occupied, while other households did not have an address.
But she didn’t need a list.
Trujillo, who is now New Mexico’s secretary of Indian affairs, said she knew the community’s roads and the families living down each one and was able to knock on all the right doors.
From downtown Albuquerque to the Navajo Nation to Silver City, the state needs more local people who are willing to walk their communities’ streets for the 2020 census, the first able to be completed online. The U.S. Census Bureau and state officials estimate a need for 4,000 to 4,500 workers to count residents between April and September 2020 because the internet doesn’t stretch to all corners of New Mexico.
“Data isn’t always reflective of the community. When I was working for campaigns, I would look at that list and know which addresses were wrong,” Trujillo said. “Recruiting from your own community is essential. We need to ensure Census Bureau workers speak the same Native languages. We’re in the process now of trying to get people signed up to do that.”
The Census Bureau did not have an estimate for how many workers — called enumerators, who earn around $15 an hour, depending on the county — are currently approved to work in the state.
In 2010, according to the nonprofit New Mexico Counts, about 2 percent of the state’s population wasn’t counted. A similar undercount next year could cost the state nearly $1.5 billion in funding for food benefits, Medicaid, education, transportation and other programs over the next 10 years.
“We have realized through data over last four decades that the most impact in response rates comes from local trusted voices,” said Sergio Martinez, a partnership coordinator for the Census Bureau in New Mexico. “That is the best strategy we can communicate.”
A staff of 13 Census Bureau employees has been communicating that strategy in training sessions with county-based “complete count committees,” he said. The state is in the process of dividing up $3.5 million among New Mexico’s 33 counties for the census effort, with appropriations ranging from nearly $600,000 for Bernalillo County to $10,000 for Mora and Los Alamos.
The U.S. Department of Indian Affairs is receiving $400,000 for tribal outreach efforts. County and Pueblo organizers say that funding, expected to be available in October, will mostly go toward local media campaigns to encourage people to both participate in the census and to work as an enumerator.
Santa Fe County is receiving nearly $138,000 in state funding for its complete count committee.
Krista Kelley, a private consultant hired by the county to oversee the census-counting project, said the local census participation rate — the number of people who filled out a census form — was 67 percent in 2000 and 68 percent in 2010.
Kelley worries the technological upgrade to online census forms will be meaningless for large swaths of the state’s population.
“I assume that part of the reason why they are rolling it out over internet is to try to utilize the budget as efficiently as they possible can, but the internet doesn’t necessarily lead to higher count numbers,” Kelley said. “Lack of internet is a big issue, and a majority of seniors may not have access to a computer. That’s why the work of enumerators is still going to be very important.”
Some counties will spend their state census appropriation on computers with internet access.
“Some of our small mining districts are look at trying to set up computers and have staff to help people get online and fill out the census,” said Michael Larisch, the planning director for Grant County in southwestern New Mexico. “We’re working with water associations to send census reminders with water bills that say we have computers at public libraries or county offices where we can help you get online and started on the process.”
Larisch said the Grant County government has spoken with Hidalgo Medical Services, a nonprofit health care organization, about recruiting drivers who deliver meals to senior citizens to also work as enumerators. In total, he estimated the county of nearly 4,000 square miles and around 28,000 people will need 22 enumerators for an accurate count.
According to the Census Bureau, every household on its residential address list will receive an invitation in March 2020 to participate in the census online or over the phone. A reminder will be sent in April before the Census Bureau begins sending paper forms to households that have not responded.
After that, enumerators will hit the streets with clipboards to visit homes and help residents fill out forms. To recruit for that effort, community leaders are hoping for further commitment from the state in the budget for the next fiscal year.
“Some of our Indian reservations don’t exactly have an address system that fits into urban areas,” Trujillo said. “Finding people is a part of the challenge. That’s why it’s so important to rely on individuals who are from that community.
“I’m hopeful that there will be more money,” she added. “I know our tribes and our counties will put it to good use.”
Source: US Government Class
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Governor announces scholarship expansion at New Mexico colleges, universities
Santa Fe New Mexican – Ian Martinez is hoping his part-time job at Santa Fe Community College becomes full time after he finishes his associate degrees in criminal justice and business administration.
Full-time employment at the college would make him eligible for four free credit hours at New Mexico Highlands University, where he hopes to pursue a bachelor’s degree in business administration via online courses.
Since 2018, when he graduated from Santa Fe Public Schools’ Early College Opportunities High School, Martinez has become an expert in federal, state and local scholarships and higher education grants. While he has been able to combine funding sources to cover his tuition at the community college, his path to a bachelor’s degree — like that of many young New Mexicans — is clouded with financial uncertainty.
“When I first came to college, I was worried about the money situation,” Martinez said. “I think everyone is. But if students know that they can get a free education after high school, can you imagine how much the enrollment rates would increase?”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has a plan to remove some of the financial roadblocks to higher education. On Wednesday, she announced a plan for a massive scholarship expansion for New Mexico residents attending the state’s public community colleges and universities, a move that could help eliminate tuition and fees for many who have earned a high school diploma or GED certificate.
It also could help reverse a trend of declining enrollment numbers at the state’s institutions.
The Governor’s Office estimates the program will cost between $25 million and $35 million a year in appropriations from the state’s general fund to benefit around 55,000 students across New Mexico.
During a statewide higher education summit Wednesday morning at Central New Mexico Community College, Lujan Grisham said she was “pretty confident” the Legislature — which has to approve the plan — would be on board.
“If we truly believe in the power of higher education and the potential of New Mexico students, let’s put our money where our mouth is,” Lujan Grisham said to a lecture hall full of the state’s K-12 and higher education employees.
“We mean business,” she added, “and it’s in our budget request. We want the rest of the world to know that they’re going to have to follow our example.”
Instead of paying for all tuition, the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship would cover any fees left over after a student applies for federal financial aid and the state’s Legislative Lottery Scholarship, which already covers between 60 percent and 75 percent of tuition for around 16 percent of New Mexico’s public college and university students.
Higher Education Deputy Secretary Carmen López-Wilson said the Opportunity Scholarship would have the same requirements as the lottery scholarship — eligible students would have to enroll in 15 credit hours per semester at a four-year New Mexico public university or 12 credit hours per semester at a two-year community college, and must maintain a 2.5 or greater cumulative grade-point average.
Students who use the scholarship at a four-year university must enroll within 16 months of graduation from high school or receipt of an equivalent diploma. Adult learners who graduated from high school more than 16 months before enrolling in higher education would be able to use the Opportunity Scholarship at two-year community colleges but not for a four-year degree.
State officials said the new scholarship would be rolled out alongside a push from the state Public Education Department to ensure every high school student applies for federal financial aid. According to the Higher Education Department, only 65 percent of New Mexico’s high school students fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as FAFSA, which allows those from lower-income families to access Pell Grants, providing up to $5,500 per year in federal tuition assistance.
“We’re working toward establishing benchmarks in order to increase the number of students who have successfully completed the FAFSA,” said Public Education Deputy Secretary Kara Bobroff. She founded the Native American Community Academy, a charter school in Albuquerque where every student applies to at least 10 colleges.
“What really excites me about today’s announcement is the chance to think about college for all students and not just some students,” she said.
State Rep. G. Andrés Romero, D-Albuquerque, the House Education Committee chairman and an American history teacher at Atrisco Heritage Academy High School in Albuquerque, said students who typically are discouraged by the sticker shock of college were excitedly discussing the proposal in his classroom Wednesday.
“What this will do for a lot of my students is start turning college into an expectation. In the same way heading from elementary to middle school is an expectation, going from high school to college can become an expectation,” Romero said. “From my perspective as a high school teacher, that works with 11th graders who are close to college. This will be a huge motivating factor in convincing more kids to attend.”
Officials said the Opportunity Scholarship plan signifies significant new investment in a Higher Education Department that has been depleted in recent decades. According to the Governor’s Office, the department received 17 percent of the state’s general fund at its peak in 1993 but is receiving 12 percent during the current fiscal year.
López-Wilson said the department has lost 30 percent of its funding over the past 10 years.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said he supports the concept of state-funded tuition but is concerned that recurring revenues eventually won’t be sufficient to cover the costs.
“It’s a great idea, but the devil is in the details,” he said. “If we can increase enrollment and student outcomes, then that will be positive. The big concern is $25 million per year to grow into $45 million to grow into $60 million.”
A rise in demand for scholarship dollars from the New Mexico Lottery — which for years covered 100 percent of tuition for eligible students — began creating shortfalls in the scholarship fund in recent years, prompting lawmakers to decrease the amount of tuition coverage given to each recipient.
“We don’t advertise enough,” Smith said, “but New Mexico is one of the most affordable states for higher education. If you can’t go to college here, you won’t be able to go to college anywhere else.”
For the 2019-20 academic year, tuition and fees for in-state residents are $7,556 at the University of New Mexico and $7,810 at New Mexico State University. López-Wilson said she expects the scholarship, which would start covering tuition for students during the fall 2020 semester, would increase enrollment and graduation rates by allowing students to finish school faster.
Northern New Mexico College President Rick Bailey lauded the plan, which he said could persuade more students to attend college. “We don’t compete with other colleges and universities for students,” he said. “Typically, we compete with the decision of whether or not to go to college, so the more we can break down barriers to college, the more successful we will be, not only as an institution but as a state.”
According to the Governor’s Office, 20 other states provide tuition-free community colleges, but New York is the only state to establish tuition-free universities.
“I think it’s an amazing thing,” said Zoe Callan, a junior at Native American Community Academy. “We’re opening up opportunities for so many people. …
“It’s about time New Mexico led the way,” she added. “Money is definitely something we all think about when we’re applying to college. I don’t think it will stop me from applying to other places, but it definitely will encourage me to look at the options here in New Mexico more closely.”
Source: US Government Class
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Trump Will End California’s Authority to Set Stricter Auto Emissions Rules
New York Times – WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected on Wednesday to formally revoke California’s legal authority to set tailpipe pollution rules that are stricter than federal rules, in a move designed by the White House to strike twin blows against both the liberal-leaning state that President Trump has long antagonized and the environmental legacy of President Barack Obama.
The announcement that the White House will revoke one of California’s signature environmental policies will come while Mr. Trump is traveling in the state, where he is scheduled to attend fund-raisers in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
The formal revocation of California’s authority to set its own rules on tailpipe pollution — the United States’ largest source of greenhouse emissions — will be announced Wednesday afternoon at a private event at the Washington headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A White House spokesman referred questions on the matter to the Environmental Protection Agency. A spokesman for the E.P.A. did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, wrote in an email: “California will continue its advance toward a cleaner future. We’re prepared to defend the standards that make that promise a reality.”
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The move has been widely expected since last summer, when the Trump administration unveiled its draft plan to roll back the strict federal fuel economy standards put in place by the Obama administration. That draft Trump rule also included a plan to revoke a legal waiver, granted to the state of California under the 1970 Clean Air Act, allowing it to set tougher state-level standards than those put forth by the federal government.
The revocation of the waiver would also affect 13 other states that follow California’s clean air rules.
In recent months, the administration’s broader weakening of nationwide auto-emissions standards has become plagued with delays as staff members struggled to prepare adequate legal, technical or scientific justifications for the move.
As a result, the White House decided to proceed with just one piece of its overall plan — the move to strip California of its legal authority to set tougher standards — while delaying the release of its broader rollback, according to these people.
The administration’s plans have been further complicated because major automakers have told the White House that they do not want such an aggressive rollback. In July, four automakers formalized their opposition to Mr. Trump’s plans by signing a deal with California to comply with tighter emissions standards if the broader rollback goes through.
While the broader efforts to undo the federal vehicle emissions standards remain incomplete, the legal proposal to revoke California’s legal authority to set its own pollution rule has been completed and ready to go for weeks.
White House officials have also been eager to move quickly to revoke California’s authority to set its own standards because they want the opportunity to defend the legal effort to undo emissions regulations in the Supreme Court before the end of Mr. Trump’s first term. The thinking goes that if a Democrat were to be elected president in 2020, the federal government would be unlikely to defend revocation of the waiver in the high court.
California’s special right to set its own tailpipe pollution rules dates to the 1970 Clean Air Act, the landmark federal legislation designed to fight air pollution nationwide. The law granted California a waiver to set stricter rules of its own because the state already had clean air legislation in place before the landmark 1970 federal legislation.
A revocation of the California waiver would have national significance. Thirteen other states follow California’s tighter standards, together representing roughly a third of the national auto market.
Because of that, the fight over federal auto emissions rules has the potential to split the United States auto market, with some states adhering to stricter pollution standards than others. For automakers, that represents a nightmare scenario.
The Obama-era tailpipe pollution rules that the administration hopes to weaken would require automakers to build vehicles that achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, cutting about six billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetimes of those vehicles. The proposed Trump rule would lower the requirement to about 37 miles per gallon, allowing for most of that pollution to be emitted.
Source: US Government Class